It was a big year for the ad tech sector as marketers and agencies continued to refine their relationship to programmatic, big players made big announcements and ad blocking returned to the spotlight as a factor in determining consumers’ relationships with online ads. As the list of our most-read stories of 2015 shows, Marketing readers tracked Google’s shifting algorithms with rapt attention, and observed as big Canadian brands made investments in improving their connections with consumers.
#10 Ad blocking blamed for 30% decline in ad traffic
The total number of desktop display ads served in Canada declined by 30% between August 2013 and August 2015, even though Canadians’ overall desktop usage has remained flat. The culprit? IAB Canada says it comes down to ad blocking.
Read More
#9 Casale Media rebrands, Andrew Casale takes over as CEO
Casale Media began operating as the Index Exchange in January under new leadership.
Read More
#8 Google cuts out third-party DSPs from YouTube inventory
Advertisers lost the ability to use their demand-side platform of choice to bid on YouTube’s preroll ads at the end of 2015 when Google removed the video site’s inventory from its DoubleClick exchange.
Read More
#7 Brands brace for Mobilegeddon
When Google updated its mobile search ranking algorithms to favour websites that have been optimized for a better mobile experience, it served as a rude wake-up call for mobile-reticent brands.
Read More
#6 What Google’s iBeacon competitor means to marketers
In July, Google launched its beacon format, Eddystone, the first designed to interact with Android devices and intended as a direct competitor to Apple’s dominant iBeacon technology.
Read More
#5 Meet the successful ad tech innovators on the Best of the Year list
Six companies made Marketing’s first-ever Tech Player of the Year shortlist, which included companies that have contributed key innovations in media buying, ecommerce and marketing automation.
Read More
#4 Publicis ditches its agency trading desk
Publicis become the first agency holding company to openly abandon the ubiquitous — and much-maligned — agency trading desk, opting instead to break up that operation and reassign staff to other media agency teams.
Read More
#3 TD takes a hard line on fraud
In February, TD and media agency Starcom MediaVest took a stand against ad fraud and encouraged other Canadian advertisers to do the same.
Read More
#2 Here are the most-used tech platforms in Canada
To add some transparency to the ad tech sector, Montreal-based technology firm AdGear collected data on which platforms have the highest rate of adoption among Canada’s top online advertisers.
Read More
#1 Canadian Tire testing Google Now cards
Canadian Tire became one of the first retailers in North America to test proximity-based retailer information “cards” in Google’s context-aware dashboard app. “The Google Now store card, which acts like a mobile Canadian Tire storefront, is a perfect example of how we’re reacting to the digital disruption,” said Canadian Tire’s TJ Flood.
Read More
