Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
Will Airbnb Take The Trip?
Marriott, Uber, Tripadvisor, Expedia and others in the hotel and hospitality category have seized on the retail media trend to launch advertising businesses – and they’re now earning hundreds of millions of dollars per year, if not reaching $1 billion in ad revenue.
Airbnb is a holdout.
And the will-they-or-won’t-they narrative of a potential Airbnb Advertising business isn’t going away.
For one thing, Airbnb recently updated its on-site search to offer more recommended destinations and search filters, Hiroki Asai, Airbnb’s global CMO, tells Digiday.
The experience now is “simpler, more intuitive,” Asai said, as well as being more personalized to the person booking a stay.
The more “personalized” the platform, the easier to turn a search business into a sponsored listing business. For example, the stage is set for hosts to pay to promote their own listings or for nearby restaurants and destinations to pitch themselves. If Airbnb wanted to.
Airbnb has also overhauled its own marketing plans, Asai said. The company was previously focused on performance metrics, like new user downloads and driving that final booking or new host sign-up. Now, the company sticks to branding campaigns on social media to drive the downstream actions without the performance marketing campaigns.
Lost In The Googleverse
The shake-ups continue for Google’s ad tech leadership ranks.
Prabhakar Raghavan, who has been the head of search, ads and commerce products since 2018, and Google Assistant in 2020, will become the company’s chief technologist, The Verge reports. Nick Fox, a longtime Googler, is replacing him – though CEO Sundar Pichai, in a memo, cited Fox’s contributions to Google Fi (a wireless network provider) and rich content messaging.
Jerry Dischler, another longtime head honcho on the ads side, moved to president of cloud applications this year.
This is partly a natural diaspora; when people join a company like Amazon, Google or Microsoft, they often bounce around to different segments. But it’s also because antitrust suits have burned Google Ads leadership, forcing internal disclosures.
Dischler sent a now-notorious note about “shaking the cushions” to extract more search ad revenue by raising prices. Sissie Hsiao, another public face of the Google ad business for years, now leads product for Gemini, which is itself folding into Google DeepMind.
Up, Stream
The major streaming companies are trying – and struggling – to balance the twin needs of streaming ad revenue and streaming subscriber growth.
Last week, Disney rolled out new prices across its whole portfolio of streaming services, which had been announced in August. Peacock and Max both hiked prices this year as well.
For the most part, streamers have been happy to raise prices. It’s partly a way to knock people down into their ad-supported tiers, which ostensibly should generate higher average monthly revenue per subscriber. For TV companies, too, the growth in streaming comes as they lose revenue from cable companies for carrying their channels. Many people signing up to new streaming bundles are cutting linear, but watching TV the old way is more lucrative for the broadcasters.
Netflix is in the opposite position, with a robust streaming business but a nascent ad business. Its ad-free premium tier is still delivering a higher revenue per month than its ad tier. Though Netflix perhaps could change that if the company succeeds with its in-house ad tech and with its prediction to double ad revenue next year.
But Wait, There’s More!
Google will block election ads after polls close. [Axios]
How Google’s core search updates crippled and eventually ended one startup gaming publisher. [Medium]
The FCC has proposed a $147,000 fine against ESPN for transmitting emergency signals in an NBA promo, which is not allowed in absence of an actual emergency. [Deadline]