Adelaide

Google’s DV360 adding attention as optimization signal could finally help wean buyers and platforms off bidding on ad inventory based on viewability.

The open web is dead; long live the open web. It’s healthy; it’s full of opportunity; it’s doomed; it’s a mess. Also, what even is the open web, and do consumers care about the definition?

Current ad pricing often doesn’t correlate to a site’s attention score, which means there’s an arbitrage opportunity for buyers and resellers.

Adelaide may become the first vendor to receive accreditation for an attention metric. Plus, the IAB is leading a lawsuit against the FTC.

By applying Adelaide’s Attention Unit scoring, buyers can target low-, medium- and high-attention inventory via TTD’s self-serve platform.

The initiative will kick off this month, and the IAB and MRC expect to have draft accreditation guidelines open for public comment by Q1 2025.

Special guest and prolific ad tech investor Eric Franchi of Aperiam Ventures discusses his firm’s recent bet on attention metrics startup Adelaide. Plus: What’s up with Meta’s new third-party attribution partnerships?

Adelaide used this latest cash injection to boost its valuation to $60 million ahead of an all-stock acquisition of Rita, an Amsterdam-based data marketplace with a focus on the EU.

Since launch, 82% of advertisers that buy inventory through the Yahoo DSP have tried Backstage at least once. And buyers are seeing lower CPMs from cutting out SSPs.

In today’s newsletter: Adalytics reveals Forbes was running a separate MFA sub-domain; The New York Times seeks to use attention benchmarking to validate its premium publisher status; and Google is reportedly looking to buy HubSpot.