Grow Advertising is a pay-per-click advertising exchange, similar to Google Adwords, for the legal blacklisted industries

Grow Advertising

The United States v Meta Platforms Court Filing October 24, 2023 is part of . You can jump to any part in this filing . This is part 11 of 100. HackerNoon’s Legal PDF Series here A. To maximize profit, Meta’s business model focuses on increasing young users’ engagement. 1. Meta monetizes young users’ attention through data harvesting and targeted advertising. 54. Meta’s core business model across its Social Media Platforms is monetizing user information and attention by increasing engagement, otherwise known as time spent, on its Platforms. Meta is constantly striving to sustain and increase user engagement on its Platforms so that it can sell more and better advertising opportunities to paying advertisers. 55. Meta generates most of its revenue from advertisers, who are able to use targeted advertising based on the personal data Meta collects for each user. As Meta’s CFO David Wehner indicated in a January 2019 earnings call: In terms of our ability to continue to grow the advertising business, it’s about working to develop the best—the best products we can to enable advertisers to achieve their end business results. Targeting obviously very is [sic] important in that. 56. When Meta succeeds in maintaining a user’s interest through its recommendation algorithms—thus keeping the user on a Platform for a longer time—Meta can collect more data on the user and serve the user more advertisements. 57. [Redacted] 58. Increasing the time spent on Meta’s Platforms increases the effective delivery of targeted ads—a pivotal factor in Meta’s ability to generate revenue. In an April 2019 earnings call, Meta’s CFO noted, “we’re relying on continuing to improve targeting. And so you’ve got— the risk there is of course the headwinds that we talked about on the ad targeting front and how that will play into U.S. growth as well.” 59-60. [Redacted] 61. Advertisers do not have long-term commitments to Meta’s Platforms. Accordingly, Meta must continue to deliver ads in an effective manner to retain paying advertisers and maintain and increase its revenue. 62. Meta has emphasized ad effectiveness as a top priority for future growth. As thenChief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg told investors on a 2019 earnings call, “[o]ver time our systems will do a better job deciding where your ads should be placed and even helping you target. And so you’re seeing us build tools in that direction as well.” 63. As Meta noted in its 2021 Annual Report to the SEC, “[t]he size of our user base and our users’ level of engagement across our products are critical to our success.” It noted that factors affecting Meta’s revenue generation include (1) “user engagement, including time spent on [Meta’s] products”; (2) increasing “user access to and engagement with [Meta’s] products”; (3) Meta’s ability “to maintain or increase the quantity or quality of ads shown to users”; (4) maintaining traffic to monetized features like the “Feed” and “Stories”; (5) the “effectiveness of [Meta’s] ad targeting”; and (6) the degree to which users engage with Meta’s ads. 64. Meta’s Recommendation Algorithms were designed with its business purpose in mind, namely, to capture users’ attention and keep them engaged on the Platforms. 65. These algorithms do not promote any specific message by Meta. Rather, the algorithms function on a user-by-user basis, detecting the material each individual is likely to engage with and then increasingly displaying similar material to maximize the time spent (and user data collected) on the Platforms. 66. [Redacted] 67. Meta’s algorithms apply not only to material generated by users but also to advertisements. As Sandberg expressed in a 2019 earnings call, “[a]cross all of our platforms and formats, we’re investing in AI [artificial intelligence] to make ads more relevant and effective. In Q4, we developed new AI ranking models to help people see ads they’re more likely to be interested in.” Continue Reading . Here About HackerNoon Legal PDF Series: We bring you the most important technical and insightful public domain court case filings. This court case 4:23-cv-05448 retrieved on October 25, 2023, from is part of the public domain. The court-created documents are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction. Washingtonpost.com

Meta's Core Business Model Revolves Around Monetizing User Information and Attention

USA v. Google LLC Court Filing, retrieved on January 24, 2023 is part of . You can jump to any part in this filing . This is part 25 of 44. HackerNoon’s Legal PDF Series here IV. GOOGLE’S SCHEME TO DOMINATE THE AD TECH STACK D. Google Responds to the Threat of Header Bidding by Further Excluding Rivals and Reinforcing Its Dominance 2. Google Blunts Header Bidding By “Drying Out” the Competition b) Google Further Stunts Header Bidding by Working to Bring Facebook and Amazon into Its Open Bidding Fold 187. Even before the rise of header bidding, Google had identified Facebook as a potential competitive threat. Facebook had at one point shown ambitions to challenge Google as a full-stack ad tech competitor, acquiring a publisher ad server in 2013 and a video advertising SSP in 2014, though both products were later shuttered. Years later, Facebook recognized that any full-stack ad tech strategy “is subject to one bottleneck and intermediary—Google. They ‘own’ the Ad Server, and hence the last mile relationship with publishers.” Facebook further observed that “[o]ther players in the market, such as Amazon, recognize that unseating Google, and its relationships with publishers is hard, and are also choosing to build on top of Google’s rails.” 188. Though it had abandoned its efforts to be a full-stack competitor, Facebook still aimed to grow its advertising business beyond its owned and operated (“O&O”) digital properties (e.g., Facebook Blue and Instagram apps), which were increasingly supplyconstrained. As the number of advertisers on these properties grew, demand threatened to outpace available inventory; Facebook sought publisher inventory outside Facebook to satisfy this unmet advertising demand. In 2014, it launched Facebook Audience Network (“FAN”), which Facebook described as the “power of Facebook ads, off-Facebook.” FAN allowed Facebook advertisers to extend their campaigns outside of Facebook O&O properties with a oneclick, opt-in button. 189. At launch, FAN primarily worked with mobile app advertisers to place ads in other mobile apps in order to drive app installs and engagement. It later expanded to open web on mobile devices. By 2016, FAN was participating in the growing header bidding movement, partnering with header bidding wrappers to submit real-time, simultaneous bids, and eventually launching full-scale header bidding in 2017. 190. As a large ad network connected to millions of Facebook advertisers, FAN also competed with Google to lock up available publisher inventory for its advertisers. Prior to joining Open Bidding, Facebook executives foresaw a status quo of “hand-to-hand combat” between the companies to secure access to sufficient inventory from publishers. Google feared such competition with Facebook would end up “eat[ing] margin,” and that Google might “respond identically” through deals with top publishers, thus “driving a price war.” Facebook was equally leery of such a future, with one executive fretting that the “significant investment required to lock up inventory through direct deals” with publishers would “[l]ikely start a race to the bottom on margin.” 191. Google took note of FAN’s launch and kept a wary eye on FAN as it grew, describing Facebook as “a unique competitive challenge for us, both short- and long-term” because of its “strength in ad formats and targeting.” Google understood Facebook’s reach with over a billion users, and it understood that just as Google had valuable targeting and demographic data from its O&O properties—including Search, Gmail, YouTube, Android, and Play Store—Facebook, too, had a massive amount of valuable data from its O&O properties. Even though Facebook had largely given up on building a direct competitor to Google’s publisher ad tech stack, Google saw looming “[d]isintermediation [t]hreats” to DFP from “[l]arge [n]etworks with unique data and advertiser scale seek[ing] direct inventory access[,] [g]oing direct to pubs or using existing [third-party] channels like Header Bidding.” By contrast, Google characterized full-stack competitors as “historical competition” of little concern: “This is a short-term threat and we are well positioned here.” 192. As FAN began to test and use header bidding, Google grew increasingly alarmed at “the existential threat posed by Header Bidding and FAN.” Google strategized over how to respond to FAN’s entry into header bidding, and in September 2016, Google laid out a plan to bring FAN into Google’s Open Bidding program. Significantly, Google concluded that bringing FAN demand into Open Bidding was a better alternative to slow publisher adoption of header bidding than “[a]ggressively mak[ing] [Open Bidding] much better than [header bidding].” 3. Rather than making a better product and competing on the merits, Google sought a deal with Facebook to bring FAN into Google’s Open Bidding—away from rival exchanges’ header bidding auctions—to “dry out” the nascent threat posed by header bidding. If competition with Facebook was inevitable, it would be better for Google to compete on a field it still controlled, with the many advantages it had constructed for itself, thus protecting DFP’s market dominance. Indeed, Google concluded that while it “[c]annot avoid competing with FAN,” it could, through a deal with Facebook, “build a moat around our demand.” And as Google’s product leadership would ultimately recommend to CEO Sundar Pichai, with a Google-Facebook deal, “[f]or web inventory, we will move [FAN’s] demand off of header bidding set up and further weaken the header bidding narrative in the marketplace.” Facebook, meanwhile, was frank in its assessment of Google’s motivation for the deal: “What Google wants: To kill header bidding (us baptizing [Open Bidding] will help significantly).” 194. Ultimately, in September 2018, after a long negotiation and approvals by each company’s top brass—including Pichai, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sheryl Sandberg—Google and Facebook entered into a “Network Bidding Agreement” (“NBA”). The deal provided Facebook with unique terms, including a contractual promise of no last look and direct remittance to publishers, ensuring that Facebook would continue to maintain its publisher-facing relationships. In exchange, Facebook committed to a minimum annual spend on Open Bidding and was incentivized, through an all-units, tiered volume discount, to shift spend to Open Bidding and away from possible alternative header bidding avenues. 195. Having tried and failed to challenge Google as full-stack competitor—in part because of Google’s anticompetitive conduct described above—Facebook ultimately resigned itself to operating on top of Google’s rails. While the NBA satisfied Facebook’s need for increased access to publisher inventory, Facebook recognized that it would also “reduce our future optionality to build our own ad tech and the likelihood of a newbie like Amazon[, which had introduced a header bidding wrapper,] succeeding.” Facebook believed that, while perhaps “inevitable,” the deal would nevertheless “accelerate Google’s stranglehold on ad tech.” Facebook’s then-VP of Partnerships opined that “by doing this deal, we will cement [Google’s] position of power.” 196. Amazon’s TAM posed a different competitive threat to Google’s dominance. It allowed publishers to solicit bids from multiple ad exchanges via a single call from a webpage to Amazon’s extensive network of servers. And Amazon took only a small one cent CPM fee— much lower than Open Bidding’s 5% fee—for every transaction that flowed through TAM. Google initially feared TAM could aggregate advertising demand in a way that challenged Google’s ad exchange and publisher ad server, leading Google to ask Amazon what it would take for Amazon to stop investing in its header bidding product. However, Amazon rebuffed such requests and continued to develop and deploy TAM. But as with other header bidding solutions, TAM could not fully circumvent all of the restrictions and preferences baked into Google’s ad tech products, which website publishers still relied upon. For example, TAM remained subject to a “last look” by Google’s ad exchange, allowing Google’s ad exchange to win any impression that would otherwise flow through TAM by matching the competing price from TAM. 197. Google’s Open Bidding—and Google’s efforts to shift the focus of other major ad tech companies like Facebook from header bidding toward Open Bidding—stunted header bidding’s adoption, leaving header bidding unable to pose a true threat to Google’s monopoly power. In doing so, Open Bidding achieved its goal of blunting the growth of header bidding and protecting Google’s publisher ad server. Today, Google still has its publisher ad server monopoly. Header bidding persisted, but its adoption stagnated. And Google turned to other, more surreptitious methods to restrain competition and “dry out” ad exchanges using header bidding. Continue Reading . Here About HackerNoon Legal PDF Series: We bring you the most important technical and insightful public domain court case filings. This court case 1:23-cv-00108 retrieved on September 8, 2023, from is part of the public domain. The court-created documents are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction. justice.gov

Google Brings Facebook and Amazon into Its Open Bidding Fold

Google incorpora a Facebook y Amazon a su proceso de licitación abierta

Google intègre Facebook et Amazon dans son programme d'enchères ouvertes

Google Facebook और Amazon को अपने ओपन बिडिंग फोल्ड में लाता है

Google、FacebookとAmazonを自社の公開入札に参加させる

Google traz Facebook e Amazon para seu grupo de licitações abertas

Google đưa Facebook và Amazon vào cuộc đấu thầu mở

谷歌将 Facebook 和亚马逊纳入公开竞价范围

Software developer who created Alexa sleep skill to get a Tesla and start his own company. You can replicate this success too, since major companies open their ecosystems to third-parties. Moreover, it’s a great opportunity to combine the useful with the pleasant, for game skills are the most popular voice skills. You can start with this playground and then step up to the business skills, or you can build up your own gaming empire. Let me show you how it works! has earned enough money The number of smart , smart displays, smart watches, and other smart devices goes up and up. Smart speaker market is the most rapidly growing sector of consumer electronics ever — it has already outpaced and almost doubled the smartphones market penetration. And despite the fact this market is relatively new, its development is fast and positive. Take a look at these insights: speakers 32% of people in the US 18+ own a smart speaker 78% growth in smart speakers in a year 30% of smart speaker owners own 3 or more smart speakers It follows that the ownership is growing. And once users embrace voice technology, of its possibilities and they use it more often: they become more confident 29% of smart speaker owners use it daily, with 24% using it nearly every day 76% of US adults claim to be using their voice assistance more frequently in the last 12 months 50% of search will move to voice by 2020 Conversational technologies are rapidly growing, are shaping up and are popping out. Some major brands already restructure their customer experience strategies while using chatbots and virtual assistants as an acquisition channel. For instance, Send Me a Sample – it’s a promotion method where customers can ask voice assistants to send them product samples. , and others have already taken advantage of this voice-first interaction and according to their statements, free samples help them grow their advertising sales and gain an edge over Facebook and Google. professional communities successful business cases DKNY recently joined campaign Nutella Coca-Cola While brands pour cash into voice experiences to gain tech-savvy customers’ attention and loyalty, independent developers can get some decent money out of it. Voice not only sells, it can inform, navigate, educate, and entertain. Through the instrumentality of conversational flow builders some useful and less useful skills for smart assistants. But most gainful sphere here is games. you can create Why games? It's simple – we love having fun. Entertaining content accustoms us to new interfaces, helps to break down barriers and embrace new technologies. It’s a kind of a training mode for children and adults — games teach us something new, they reinforce our skills, and model the world around us. Games have always promoted development of the new technology At the early PC era there were Atari and Commodore. After that – gaming consoles. A bit later first 3D games began the video card productivity race. Surprising, but this very race has enabled us to make such progress in Artificial Intelligence, and Conversational AI specifically. Video cards’ power supply and architecture moved engineers forward to appliance of the convolutional neural networks, resulting in a machine learning breakthrough. In the beginning of 2000s, paid ringtones gave rise to mobile content, but then mobile games appeared and added fuel to the flame. Games were the first ones to spread over the appstores, and when Facebook launched its targeted advertising, gamedev companies were there to use it long before brands and FMCG. Then smartphones have changed the gaming industry: game developers reconsidered game interfaces and monetization. They’ve created new mechanics and new game genres. As a result, Angry Birds and Pokemon Go popped out, and the same is happening right now with voice interfaces. Voice games – is a huge field of opportunities for developers. Good ideas and mechanics matter ultimately in this field. For example, has shown that 63% of smart speaker owners have one in their living room where all the family members spend time with each other. And that’s a great opportunity to build up a whole voice game industry for a group of friends gathered together or for busy parents wondering how to employ their child. Some savvy startups like and have already grabbed the chance and created a hit combo: they integrated voice control with the most popular hobby — tabletop games. Alexa here enlarges the board game with an interactive experience, it gives instructions and guides players through the game. Taking into consideration a growing demand for tabletop games over recent years, it can be said with confidence that this sector has great financial clout. Just take a look at this . Adobe survey X2Games Sensible Object AI-enabled Mystery Boardgame Among the other game skills, you can find interactive adventure games, where you can build up your own story, character and the world itself. These games are well-designed and sometimes they even . A great example here is a fully immersive Amazon Alexa game that allows fans to . vocalized by professional actors navigate Westworld using their voice only , like or – are the second most popular genre here. There’s a whole bunch of games for a get-together and . You can play song quizzes and traditional entertainment like and – but in this case your digital assistant takes on the role of a game guide. Along with that you would find thousands if games, and games, and games , of course. Games based on a TV show Jeopardy! Guess the price family parties truth or dare spin the bottle trivia and knowledge word drinking for kids Since major companies open their ecosystems to third-parties, and software developers build up numerous that don’t even require coding skills, creating a game of your own is as easy as pie. These conversational flow builders work on the drag and drop principle: handy platforms The hardest part is the dialog itself. Or, more accurately, the natural flow of conversation. When outlining a piece of content, you’ve got to think of the next logical line of inquiry or move and begin building out a matrix of additional content that answers users’ questions well in advance. that would help you to build your first AI-powered skill. And remember – if a user gets bad experience at the very start – they would leave. Think through VUI and the storyline itself very carefully. After you have finished with that, all you need is to test and publish your skill. It would appear on Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant sometime after the moderation. Here are some hints What assistant to pick? Now there are four primary assistants (we’re not taking into account rapidly growing Chinese and VA market yet), but Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant should be considered in the first place. Both are making progress and very unlikely would be stiffed by competitors in the near future. These assistants have different approaches to development, but both provide built-in skill types and a template-style approach for building skills: you can use Alexa’s or Google’s – these are online tools that enable users to build up skills in minutes. Or you can use one of the conversational flow builders, that we’ve mentioned before. Both companies provide a wide range of tutorials, webinars, and training courses – there’s sufficient information to begin with and to help with more complicated topics. Besides, every conversational builder has its own tutorials and special opportunities, sounds and features, built-in user’s intents and creative content. Russian Blueprints Templates Amazon Skills may be found nearly everywhere: Amazon and other manufacturers’ smart , smartphones, other smart devices, and even platform , which enables companies to integrate Alexa into a smart office. Alexa’s skill number is growing exponentially, and this assistant in the most capable so far. is used for in-skill purchasing (ISP), but the best part here is that Amazon Skill Store marks out paid skills on its main page with the Premium Skills category. Besides, Amazon brings in engagement with premium content on a subscription basis, while offering to developers beneficial conditions for partnership. Developers charge an in-skill price and get 70% of the revenue. Users can make a purchase inside the skill using their voice only (confirmation/refusal in a yes/no form). The process is simple and smooth, it doesn’t distract user from skill doings. Alexa speakers Alexa for Business Amazon Pay To promote ISP inside its ecosystem Amazon brings in key vendors and top skill developers to networking and informational support. For instance, developer Gal Shenar added in-app purchase for his premium content in games and . He said that users are paying willingly for extra features and later a 34% conversion rate for Escape the Airplane skill and 8% – for Escape the Room game. In this case developer presents the premium experience as an option — not a hard selling. And this makes his skills engaging and habit-forming. Escape the Room Escape the Airplane reported Google Actions Taking into account all the possibilities Google has – accessibility of a search engine and its users’ personal data – Google Assistant was supposed to lead the smart assistants’ race from the very start. But the company dawdled on its ecosystem opening and as a result Amazon gained the upper hand and recommended oneself as the best voice assistant in the minds of consumers. But despite this fact, Google has a massive advantage for enabling content consumption due to the seamless integration possible between assistant, search, and device. Besides, discoverability issue is solved well here – this function draws upon Google algorithms to find the action or to redefine user’s inquiry. Assistant resorts to the search in case it doesn’t get user’s intent or can’t handle the query. Therefore, even if a user doesn’t say invocation phrase, or in case needed action is brand new, Assistant still would get the correct answer or find the action. As a result, Assistant won’t ask user same question several times, and they won’t get mad at it. We got to admit, open ecosystem and the ways Amazon brings developers to it did their part – Alexa has thousands of devoted fans willing to invest their time and money in its evolvement. Google upgrades Assistant under one’s own power, they fill in the Knowledge Base so that smart assistant could answer questions in a better way. Google Assistant is quite advanced – it has . Moreover, the company explores opportunities for integration with other apps, services and platforms (e.g., Android). This is a good strategy, for, that’s a given, that Pixel and Chrome OS connect better to Google Home rather than to Amazon Echo. Besides, it’s pre-installed on millions of smartphones, which means users have already grown accustomed to it. And the actions built up for Assistant may be deployed on Android apps too – this would enable users to make purchases through the platform they prefer. digital transactions and monetization methods Play and get paid It’s hard to tell for sure which way voice games would evolve. Interactive dramas, voice quests and voice-enabled boardgames appear, while quizzes get more and more complicated. Most probably, when microphone arrays are integrated with TVs and consoles, smart displays and other conversational AI specialties would open new avenues for traditional games. This is a huge market open to experiments – everyone can contribute to the development of voice experiences. And the larger enthusiastic audience is, the faster and better the technology will progress. Developers are faced with many issues – what mechanics to choose? How to get the traffic? Which monetisation methods to apply? How to remind of your skill to the gone user? No stable rules, too little proven practice here But this is a place to create something new and really cool. This is the time to invent a new genre and to realise your own success story. Good luck!

Why Build Games for Smart Assistants?

Recently I had the opportunity to chat with System1’s CEO Michael Blend to discuss the 2019 partnership with the privacy respecting search engine Startpage. The news of controversial partnership rocked the privacy community. Thankfully, Startpage Co Founder and CEO Robert E.G. Beens answered the community’s questions and put anti-privacy rumors to rest. Furthermore, since the announcement the private search engine has shown that Startpage’s mission hasn’t changed, but rather has enhanced their privacy services. However, questions have still remained as to the relationship with System1 and why they would want a search engine that does not track its users. When I agreed to interview Mr. Blend, I made it clear I wasn’t going to softball my questions and I wanted to know as much as I could about the company and its plans. What I learned is printed below, unedited straight from the CEO’s mouth. An enlightening look at the history and future of System1 and the place they believe Startpage and other privacy respecting services have among their impressive group of companies. In your own words, how would you describe System1? System1 is a search and applications internet company with a growing focus on consumer privacy and security. We founded the company in Venice, CA in 2013. Since then, we’ve assembled an incredible group of engineers, creators and data scientists, made strategic investments, acquired several companies, and expanded our offices around the world. It appears that historically, System1 has collected data in a more traditional fashion. What made you interested in exploring investments in the privacy industry? Our focus at System1 has always been on helping people have the best internet experience. We started the company with the mission of eliminating disruptive or harmful advertising by matching people with the most relevant advertising from the best companies. Over the years, we have built a technology platform that incorporates digital advertising to grow new audiences and market content and products. We have strived to market our properties using the most people-friendly ways possible. As data privacy became more important to our users and the internet community in general, we decided to make a large company-wide investment into protecting consumer privacy and security. It is our belief that moving forward, the privacy practices of a product, service and company will be a leading factor in whether people decide to use the offering. The decision to specifically invest in Startpage was based on its robust privacy policy, impressive tech and unique ability to deliver Google search results. Furthermore, we have absolute faith in the Startpage team to continue to provide the world’s most private search engine. When System1 & Startpage decided to team up, both companies made a commitment to continue and further strengthen Startpage’s privacy components. We are proud that the past 2 years have shown that we have honored that commitment, and that Startpage users have continued to entrust us to maintain our strict privacy standards. How do you imagine recreating such successful advertising models while respecting consumer privacy? Startpage has been a profitable company since 2006 without storing or sharing any personal information on people using its search engine. Their revenue is generated from contextual ads based on a person’s search term. Meaning if a person searches for “bicycles,” they will see ads from brands who paid for the search term keyword “bicycles,” and NOT based on other personal data. System1 has absolutely no intention to change this process or revenue stream on Startpage. Instead, we see it aligned with our practice of delivering diversified advertising that’s relevant and safe. To be transparent, on other System1 products, not Startpage, we do practice targeted behavioral advertising and are clear about this within the privacy policy. People want advertising that is relevant, but do not want to be profiled. Successful advertising can be achieved by showing people ads relevant to what they are currently engaging with. The investment in Startpage created pretty big waves in the privacy world, seeing as how it seemed at face value to be antithetical to your current business model. What was it that drew you to their service? We understand the concern that has been expressed and that we have to earn and always keep the community’s trust. We welcome continued scrutiny by the privacy community to ensure that we maintain Startpage’s strict privacy standards. Last year, Startpage even published its which no other private search engine has done. data flow Startpage was the ideal decision for us because we wanted to team up with the most authentic privacy-focused company in the world. Startpage’s founders have never wavered from that purpose and mission, even at the expense of significant financial opportunity cost. This commitment to the mission of privacy is what drew us to the team and the product. We knew this was the approach we wanted to take as we entered into the privacy space. A lot of concern raised about the partnership revolves around trust. Consumers want to know how they can trust a more traditional advertising company to respect their privacy. What assurance can you offer those consumers that System1 won’t utilize Startpage in the way it does other assets? We completely understood the initial concern, and we are proud that we have shown for the last 2 years our commitment to keeping Startpage as the world’s most private search engine. We know that if we violate people’s trust in any way, Startpage will be out of business. Practically speaking, this would make our investment a complete failure and be a terrible mark on System1. Beyond that, System1 as a company has a long history of honoring its commitments. System1 is interested in Startpage’s unique product and growing contextual ad revenue — not its data. As part of our partnership with Startpage, we took many steps to structure our arrangement in a way to maximize consumer privacy. Startpage continues to be operated out of the Netherlands and, therefore, is protected by EU privacy legislation. Furthermore, the Startpage founders have the contractual right to review and approve any product or technical changes that may impact user privacy. What led to the creation of Privacy One Group and how is it different from System1? What does the future of Privacy One Group look like? Privacy One Group is the operational home for our privacy-focused service offerings and applications to serve people, advertisers and other service providers. We are interested in adding to our suite of privacy-focused offerings where we believe we can accelerate that opportunity. I imagine Startpage is only the beginning. What other privacy investments are being considered? We are spending a lot of time thinking about where privacy is headed and how we can provide a compelling suite of products for people. Last year we acquired the Waterfox browser, which is known for, among other things, being privacy friendly. We are also working on a private mapping solution in our MapQuest business. We believe a combined offering, which could include VPN and other privacy-related services, would be a very interesting privacy bundle for our users. Stay tuned! Are there any recent acquisitions or products in development you can talk about now? System1 continues to grow and innovate, and we are always looking for products or teams that can help us further our mission of making the Internet a better place for people. If you know a company or person with a viable product that helps people have the best Internet experience — we would love to hear from them!

Startpage is Still a Privacy-First Search Engine, says System1 CEO 

Instagram has evolved into a platform for driving positive traffic to audience, facilitating changes, and establishing relationships with your audience. If your Instagram presence isn't as strong as you'd want, now is a good time to find out how to improve your methods for attracting true, natural Instagram followers. The larger your following grows, the more opportunities you'll have to attract customers and provide them with . engaging experiences Also, if your Instagram followers aren't interested in buying, visiting you online or in person, or promoting your companies with companions and follows, the quantity of followers on your account means nothing. Start improving your quality with these Instagram follower-building techniques. Improve Your Instagram Account The most important step is to make sure your file is up to date before you start looking for ways to gain Instagram followers. Consider your Instagram bio as the 'landing page' for your folder. How can people believe that the record belongs with your image if there's no bio, photo list, or proper username or profile picture? Also, try to make your username as search-friendly as possible, which means sticking to the name of your actual image for the most part. If your company name is lengthy, shorten it to fit the experience of your target audience. Avoid using unusual numbers or characters in your username, and if at all feasible, make it consistent with your other online profiles. Make Instagram Posts Ahead of Time Although Instagram's algorithm has altered to show consumers what they enjoy, may still increase the total engagement of your posts, giving them greater visibility. publishing at the correct times Your image may help you get awareness in a variety of ways, and Instagram content planning is now one of them, according to Sprout Social. Such technologies can aid in the planning of material and captions. Your entire group will be able to view assignments and timetables more effectively if you arrange materials ahead of time. If your team wishes to get ahead on the job, everyone may keep track of the expected progress and forthcoming posts. Recruit Collaborators to Help You Distribute Your Content When attempting to figure out how to obtain more Instagram followers, it's critical to comprehend the size of your audience. Naturally, the larger your supporter check grows, the more buyers and interested clients you will attract. You may also organize Instagram challenges to increase the number of people who see your photograph. These missions provide social proof by demonstrating that your followers care enough to share your content or create their own UGC. Spread the Word About Your Instagram Account How will people locate an account if you don't advertise it? Ensure that your Instagram account is visible on your website and other social media platforms. One of the best methods to get noticed is to raise exposure and awareness. Tell people where they can reach you if you truly want to grow your Instagram following. You may include social media buttons on your website and blog to encourage people to share your content across their social media accounts and let them know where they can find you on Instagram. Cross-promotion of your social media profiles is another excellent option. The Instagram account of the Museum of Modern Art is frequently promoted on Twitter. You may effortlessly drive visitors to your Instagram account by utilizing your other social media accounts. Make Content That Your Consumers Want to See It's a good idea to know what material your subscribers want to see, even if it's simple to do. Some material performs better than others on Instagram, as you will quickly discover. It is for this reason why testing is so crucial. The tiniest detail may make a big impact, whether it's filters, comments, content kinds, or publishing timings. Keep up with the latest Instagram trends to ensure you're sharing popular stuff. Your brand should invest in Instagram analytics solutions to help you dig further into your research. This will make tracking, comparing, and analyzing Instagram material on the accounts much easy. Trust your to determine which filters, captions, and other features are most effective with your target audience. If you're not sure where to begin, look to your competitors. content marketing strategy Look for Hashtags With a High Conversion Rate Hashtags are arguably the most reliable technique to gain Instagram followers. Hashtags have long been a staple of social media disclosure, allowing us to expand our social reach. You must grow your field as advertising by accumulating followers and hashtags. It's straightforward and painless to try to show your Instagram content amid a sea of millions of photos and videos. You must determine which hashtags users in your interest group require verification. These clients will need to monitor your case if an important association is created. Unique tagged hashtags are a way of communicating messages about a topic that is extremely important to your image and objectives.

How to Make Sure You're Getting the Most out of Instagram

It is estimated that in 2019, digital advertising spending in the world amounted to a staggering This means that almost 50% of the total advertising budget worldwide was spent on digital advertising. As businesses realize the value of digital advertising, there is an increasing need to also understand the challenges that it brings. $333 billion. One such challenge is the difficulty to make sure that ads go in the right places and to the right audience. For instance, in 2015, were played right at the beginning of YouTube videos about ISIS and terrorist propaganda. Their mother companies, Johnson & Johnson and Anheuser-Busch, were not happy to find their ads alongside these extremist videos. Instead of boosting their brands, those digital ads ended up hurting their reputation. ads for Aveeno and Bud Light This issue has become a real concern for many businesses, which is why a strategy called brand safety is growing in popularity among marketers. defines brand safety as the set of measures that a business implements to make sure that their online advertisements are not published in places that might harm the company’s image. If your company runs but does not have a brand safety strategy yet, the following steps should help you create one. Forbes digital advertisements Define What Brand Safety Means to Your Business Although the concept of brand safety is universal, its meaning can vary from one business to another. If your brand sells lingerie, your brand safety measures will be different from brand safety measures taken by a toy company. If you are a lingerie company, it may not be advisable for you to run ads on videos where the primary audience are kids. If you are a toy company, however, those kinds of videos are exactly where you want to place your ads. According to DigiDay, there are which may hurt your brand online: 12 toxic areas Adult Death or Injury Military conflict Spam or harmful site Arms Online piracy Obscenity Terrorism Crime Hate speech Illegal drugs Tobacco Take the time to evaluate which of these toxic areas you want to avoid the most, and which ones may sometimes be acceptable for your brand to be associated with. If you are a brand like , for example, then you most likely will want to be associated with tobacco-related content. However, if you are a health-focused brand like , then you probably want to avoid websites related to tobacco and related vices. Marlboro Decathlon Use Ad Technology A shows that 20% of consumers prefer brands who advertise on credible websites, and that 19% of consumers will view a brand in a negative light if they see an advertisement in a non-credible website. With fake news and bots on the rise, it is becoming difficult to distinguish the trustworthy websites from untrustworthy ones. survey by Network Research For instance, in 2019, Procter and Gamble (P&G)’s Febreze brand was hailed as the . Analysis showed that 54% of engagement on its sponsored Instagram posts came from fake accounts. These bots wasted millions of P&G’s marketing budget. “most fooled” brand when it came to bots Thankfully, that can help your brand or your ad agency spot fake news. Utilize these technologies to reduce the time spent on finding the ideal online spaces to place your ads. There are also automated advertising tools that will let you know . there are powerful advertising technologies available how much of your online reach and engagement are from real humans as opposed to bots Add a Human Component to Your Ad Verification Process Although ad technology can help you weed out the bots and fake news, sometimes the context of ad placement is still best understood by humans. Whether your brand’s digital advertising is ran in-house or , there are human-centred processes you can put in place to verify that your advertisements are in safe and relevant places. outsourced to an external digital agency There are many cases where humans can understand the context of an advertisement better than can. For example, while ad technology may think that a news website is a credible place to place your ads on, humans are still better judgers of the appropriateness of news articles within that website. Artificial Intelligence See below about a teacher who was hit by a car outside a school. Toyota’s ad placement in that article definitely seems inappropriate.  A human was most likely not a part of Toyota’s verification process for this digital ad. If a human was present in the process, the ad would most likely not have made it in this article. the news article Establish a Takedown Policy Sometimes, regardless of the brand safety measures you put in place, your ads may still end up in the wrong place. When that happens, it is important to respond quickly. Establishing a takedown policy allows you to mitigate any potential negative impacts from the controversial ad placement. Whether you are running your own digital ads or have a third-party agency that does it for you, your contracts with publishers or digital agencies must clearly state that you have the right to take down any advertisement you want removed. It must specify the acceptable timeframe required for publishers to remove the ads quickly. Your contracts with agencies and publishers must also include consequences for them if they choose not to take down ads at your request. This gives you control over your advertising placements. The Impact of Brand Safety One misplaced ad could hurt your brand’s reputation for a long time and can seriously impact your company’s revenues. revealed that when consumers see brands alongside harmful content, their preference for that brand drops significantly. Furthermore, the study showed that consumers’ willingness to purchase from a brand whose ad was seen alongside a negative content dropped by 200%. A 2018 study Investing resources into an effective brand safety strategy can therefore generate great returns for your business. As digital advertising continues to grow, it is important to make sure that your business employs a holistic approach that uses both technology and human components to ensure that your ads are in appropriate places and are directed to relevant audiences.

Brand Safety and the Challenges of Digital Advertising

The beginning of a new year is a good time to talk about the future trends of native advertising that big brands and startup marketers will try to embrace. The inception of native advertising on new platforms Native advertising is now going beyond media and blogs. Social media have provided the opportunity of earning money to active users, not only by incorporated advertising, but also by the effective content integration of various brands’ offers. In contrast, companies are able to reach a large audience without paying the relevant media for this access. The number of platforms which allow the placement of such advertising is constantly growing. Now, marketing and native promotion tools are not only blogs, Instagram and YouTube. At the same time, a few years ago, MirriAd, a company dealing with native advertising, led a campaign with Universal Music Group. During this campaign, was inserted into music artists’ clips. native advertising Today, streaming services like Pandora and Deezer are with musical native advertising. Musicians can buy ‘listenings’ of their songs — just like buying views in social media. Everything shows that the number of platforms and the ways to display native advertising will only grow. experimenting The death of advertising on the mobile web More and more advertisers realise that people use smartphones differently to desktop computers. According to the , only 11% of users go to the mobile versions of sites, while most of them (89%) prefer to spend time in apps. The developers feel this trend, so today there are now mobile apps for all occasions — the number of them in popular stores is approximately . statistics 5 million In-app advertising is much more effective than promotion on the mobile web simply because an app is more convenient for users., in-app native ads are viewed three times more often than the banners on mobile sites. Analysts at Business Insider stated that the likes, shares and other involvement indexes of in-app advertising are 20–60% higher than mobile banners. According to a MMA study All this leads to the fact that in-app advertising is pushing out mobile web, as stated in the . According to this company, in 2016 the budget spent on advertising in the mobile web was 19% and 81% was spent on the in-app advertising. This year, the web has had only 6% and the applications, 94%. Next year, the advertising in the mobile web will finally die. survey of Smaato, advertising platform Native video content development In recent years, the fast-growing advertising channel has been video. And that’s because of the high involvement indexes in comparison to other types of content on different platforms. Today, there are two basic ways to insert ads into video: pre-rolls and commercial breaks or native integration. The first option is not very popular with the audience — few people like to watch ads before or during the videos just like on TV. In contrast, native integration does not cause such irritation from the audience. The company Sharethrough completed a comparing five advertising campaigns with pre-rolls, to the same number of native campaigns. The results in each case were better when using native ads. In one case, the advertised brand, soft drink Jarritos, significantly increased its brand lift (user interaction with the brand) on native placements, while pre-rolls only gave only a 2.1% increase. survey PR role changes The growing number of channels and the ways of communication also lead to change in the role of internal PR departments. Today, business is able to interact with the audience in different ways and in different situations. At some moments, it may be required to work in crisis management, to extinguish the negativity and to prevent someone writing about an event. PR professionals capable of preventing the publication become more valuable than those “making the placement”. Meanwhile, other situations require different skills like events promotion, support on a new product launch and so on. A staff PR service can’t do everything at the same time, so outsourcing is becoming more and more popular in dealing with the emerging challenges. For example, the staff’s volume of work may become so large that they won’t be willing to spend time on media relations. They may just use native advertising and publish the relevant content on a fee basis, but they would do it promptly and with a certain standard. Content marketing: the distribution problem is key Traditionally, major brands marketers have been used to making large advertising purchases on TV, radio and in print media. This market is well-established, the interaction chains are up and running with specific market players (from agencies to brokers and intermediary networks) responsible for each stage of advertising: from the need for advertising to its appearance in the targeted media. The pricing scheme of advertising solutions is clear and it has not changed for decades. Sponsored publications in online media are not as simple — there are no uniform standards for such advertising. As a result, the business faces new conditions for every placement. According to Alexander Storozhuk, the founder of the platform , the existing media services are just evolving and they are not always capable of working with the right advertising volumes or maintaining a high level of quality. In the end, brands are forced to directly contact bloggers and online publications for purchase and communication with them can be difficult. There is also the problem of unstable pricing and it is not always clear why a post on one site is a lot more expensive than on a similar one. It complicates the tasks of planning and budget allocations for an ordinary brand. PRnews.io The situation is gradually changing as the distribution channels and native advertising infrastructure continue to evolve. We can expect new services and the first active industry-specific standards to appear in 2018.

Future: 5 Native Ad Trends in 2018

Brands, agencies and marketers no longer focus only on mobile Web. In-application advertising is rapidly growing sector of mobile advertising on the market. According to , United States app-install ad revenue is estimated to grow to more than $7 billion by year-end 2020. In-app advertising continues to grow with expenditure accounting for 96% of global ad spend on the BI Intelligence Smaato platform. In-app advertising is more than just hype it is a must for marketers nowadays. Why? It offers marketers a better opportunity to target the right audience at the right time; It captures targeted consumers’ attention and encourage them to interact without interruption; For starters, in-app advertising offers a higher click-through rate than web advertising; In-app advertising works because it is enhanced by location data and geo-targeting; Users are spending more and more time in their apps; In-app ad campaigns reach and engage customers at the moment they are active in the app and more receptive. apptica.com Creating in-app ad campaigns is a smart strategy Creating ad executing in-app mobile marketing campaign is a process that involves multiple steps. Learning those steps takes time. Finding the right way for your brand to use mobile marketing is an ongoing process and effort, with the potential for long term benefits. Marketers should consider also the following factors when developing an in-app ad campaigns: Addressable audience Knowing your intended audience can help you decide which ad network you should target and where to buy traffic. If you don’t know who is your ideal audience is, no worries, you can easily find it by running campaigns through various ad networks. Testing and testing. Or find it in in-app ad monitoring services. Partners and enablers Find the best ad partner that fits your needs. Determine which ad network, agencies or providers to use. If you’re just starting, it’s important to test as many different ad networks as possible. Perfect in-app ad formats It’s is not easy to find best working ad format, all depends of goals and testing results. For the in-app ad strategy and campaigns be more effective, better to think of adding all creative types in it — banners, full-screen interstitial ads, video, playable ads and other mobile ad types, experiment with it and A/B test it. Video is really helpful for a new brand recognition as it illustrates what the brand is doing. Ad size and placement Ads may be too big for the app or to be at the place where it is easy to ignore them. There should be the gold middle to allow users observe your ad without being intrusive. (Cost per Install) Understand your CPI You need to know what the lifetime value (LTV) of a user is to you. Bear in mind that value of an Android user different that and iOS user. It will help you to decide marketing budgets and forecasting. LTV should be greater than your CPI to gain revenue. Timing & A\B testing How much time it takes to create and execute in-app ad campaign? To get the best results from your A/B tests, run a handful of them, and refresh your creatives every two to three weeks. Your creative team may have a good idea of a strong ad creative, but anyway you need to test your ads’ performance to verify their intuition. Measure, measure, and measure Measure initial ad performance, analyze install volumes, click-through rates, and conversion rates will help you to identify and improve inefficiencies in different aspects of creative design. Sounds a bit time-consuming and expensive… Case studies After reading all information above arise a lot of questions: How other brands used mobile marketing to reach the target audience? What worked and what didn’t. Are there any best practices for that type of ad campaign? What are the apps where they buy traffic and get their audience? What are the partners they work with? Which in-app ads work? Where to find creativity, case studies, to see active and already running in-app ad campaigns? In you may explore in-app advertising insides. Apptica.com Monitor Top in-app ad campaigns with most effective formats and creatives around the world, across all categories and countries. Analyze in-app traffic sources, find new customers, track competitors and advertiser’s activity. Final Thoughts Various trends in mobile quickly become new standards. Successful ads from previous years, from other sources and platforms might not work nowadays. Creatives will continue to be fundamental to success in the in-app space. They should be treated as an investment and best in-app ad strategies should be studied carefully, implemented in your marketing plan and tested. Keep in mind that spending some time on analytics and monitoring in-app best cases is the secret to increase your revenue without losing customers.

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