Level Insights 09.14.2016

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Google will acquire Apigee for $625 million

While searching for an API management system, Level vetted five IPaaS (integration platform as a service) companies and chose Apigee. So did Google. From Tech Crunch:

“What we do know is that by acquiring Apigee, Google gets an established player in the API management space with a strong customer list to help companies going through the difficult process of becoming more digital.”

Level Insight:

  • Earlier this year, Level started updating our technology platform with Apigee to enable our clients to connect existing systems with Level Business Intelligence.
  • Apigee drastically decreases customer relationship management system integration time, enabling Level to expedite our clients’ visibility into their data.
  • We are excited to see the API management system continue to improve and integrations into Google’s technology stack.

 

Apple’s latest iPhone software update will make it a lot harder for advertisers to track you

Apple is letting consumers block ads, but to what effect and for whose benefit? From Business Insider:

“Now, when users opt to ‘limit ad traffic,’ their IDFA will simply be represented as ‘00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000.’ Ad tech companies will have no way of identifying those users — even when their only purpose of doing so was to ensure they weren’t serving them too many of the same ads (known as ‘frequency capping’), measuring whether ads led to sales, or preventing advertising fraud.”

Level Insight:

  • While the new iOS 10 feature will ostensibly give iPhone users more control over being tracked, experts wonder how much of an effect this will have on advertising reach. Only 17% of users have been using the current iOS 9 feature, and those users are unlikely to convert from an ad anyway.
  • Some theorize that ad technology companies will devise other, far more devious, means to track iPhone user behavior, making the privacy update have the opposite effect.
  • In the same announcement, Apple revealed that search ads are coming to the App Store in iOS 10, leading some to believe that the privacy update is less an attempt to protect user data and more an attempt to build its own ad revenue platform.

 

Snapchat adopts Facebook-style ad targeting like email, mobile device matching

Snapchat launches ad targeting in a familiar format. From Marketing Land:

“Snapchat is beginning to let brands aim their ads at the mobile app’s daily audience of 150 million, based on those people’s email addresses and the unique advertising identifiers attached to their phones, as well as to people who share characteristics with that defined audience.”

Level Insight:

  • Snapchat is introducing three targeting options:
    • Snap Audience Match: Brands can match their lists to that of Snapchat
    • Snapchat Lifestyle Categories: Brands can target users based on their behavior within the platform
    • Lookalikes: Brands can target users with similar characteristics to existing customers
  • Snapchat will only collect data from user behavior inside the platform, not overall mobile behavior.
  • The promised opt-out feature is not yet available.
  • The targeting options are not new to the industry; they are almost identical to what Facebook introduced.
  • With minimum spend at $50K/day, this platform is still mostly geared toward large brands. As Snapchat continues to evolve its ad serving capabilities, Level will continue monitoring for opportunities for our clients.

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