Advertisers are expected to spend a record £10.5bn during the festive season, according to new data released by the Advertising Association (AA) and WARC. This marks a 7.8% increase from last year’s spend of £9.7bn and the investment highlights advertising’s vital role to support businesses, jobs and the economy during the Christmas period. New research from Kantar shows positive sentiment towards Christmas ads is the highest since measurement began, with 59% of people saying they ‘love’ Christmas TV ads, up from 51% in 2023. While 48% of consumers last year were ‘really looking forward to seeing Christmas ads on TV’, this figure has now lifted to 56%.
Awin, the global affiliate marketing platform, has announced new updates to its platform to ensure businesses are set up for success as they enter 2025. New features allow customers to optimise campaign performance, enhance tracking accuracy, and improve publisher earnings, meeting the ever-changing demands of the affiliate marketing landscape. With the affiliate industry facing loss of ad revenue due to poor tracking setups, the new third-party cookie filter will allow publishers to identify brands still using outdated tracking methods, giving them more control to work with advertisers who use up-to-date tracking methods and avoid unreliable third-party cookies. Following the recent announcement of Awin’s Conversion Protection Initiative (CPI) in October, these updates contribute to the company’s goal to improve affiliate tracking standards and mitigate lost ad revenue due to suboptimal tracking setups.
The Trade Desk has released its earnings for Q3. The company has seen very strong revenue and EBITDA growth, beating street expectations. In addition, The Trade Desk’s 4Q guidance is head of Auto consensus. Q3 revenue was up 27% year-over-year, coming in at $628 million, beating analyst expectations of $619.85 million. The company has grown more than 20% in each of the last 11 quarters.Spotify is extending its partnership with The Trade Desk, piloting integrations with OpenPath and UID2 through Spotify Ad Exchange, while global media company Motorsport Network and Reach, a UK news publisher of 130 media brands, are adopting EUID as part of their commitment to prioritising consumer privacy.
DoubleVerify (“DV”) (NYSE: DV), a leading software platform for digital media measurement, data, and analytics, has announced the launch of DV Attention for Publishers. As the digital advertising landscape increasingly prioritises attention as a key metric to evaluate campaign success, DV Attention for Publishers empowers publishers with essential data and metrics to measure and optimise their inventory based on trusted, third-party verification. This new offering delivers expansive inventory and campaign insights for attention, including more than 15 metrics across over more than 10 dimensions of inventory. Publishers can access granular attention data across their open web and in-app campaigns and inventory, broken down by key dimensions such as ad unit, device type, media type, advertiser, order, line item, and more. For more information visit doubleverify.com/publishers.
Auto Trader, the UK’s largest automotive platform, is set to revolutionise automotive retailing with the launch of Co-Driver, a suite of solutions powered by advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. Harnessing Auto Trader’s unparalleled vehicle data and consumer insights, as well as over a decade of investment, all of Co-Driver’s solutions will be focused on alleviating retailer pain points and driving retailing performance. The first release of a multi-year pipeline of AI powered tools will give retailers direct access to Auto Trader’s wealth of data and insights. It will also significantly reduce the time and effort required to create detailed, highly compelling, and high performing used car and van listings, shortening the average time taken from circa 28 mins[1] to just a click of a button. As of this month, all retailers will have access to the first AI powered feature of Co-Driver, Smart Image Management. It utilises Auto Trader’s in-depth consumer data to instantly arrange vehicle images into the optimum sequence according to car buyer preferences.
Visual AI e-commerce search solution Miros has secured €6 million in pre-Series A funding round to take on industry giants like Google and Algolia with its visual search technology. Miros’ approach tackles the $2 trillion(1) problem facing e-commerce: lost sales due to customers unable to find what they’re looking for. Using visual AI technology, Miros can predict shoppers’ intent, enabling users to find what they want faster than traditional online search. According to Google research, online shoppers can’t find what they’re looking for 60 percent of the time, especially when it comes to visually complex products that are hard to describe using words and categories.. Miros’ visual search technology offers retailers a competitive advantage by addressing this pain point.
Insider, a leading AI-native omnichannel experience and customer engagement platform, has announced a $500 million Series E funding round led by General Atlantic, a leading global growth investor. Insider plans to further develop its next-generation marketing software offering and invest heavily in research and development, focusing on expanding and evolving its AI solutions. The company also intends to scale its talent base and geographic footprint, leveraging General Atlantic’s global platform. With an established market position in 28 countries across five continents, including North America, EMEA, APAC, and Latin America, Insider plans to increase its regional investments on the back of strong demand in the U.S. market, where it has achieved significant growth. Additionally, the company will use the funds to explore strategic M&A opportunities.
Shipster, a custom shipping integration platform, and Futura Retail Solutions, an advanced retail and warehouse management software, have announced a strategic partnership to target growing omni-channel retail markets. The alliance creates a robust end-to-end solution for Futura’s customers, boosting automation and flexibility with packing and shipping, and enhancing tracking, ensuring those final miles are faster, cheaper and more accurate. Futura, based in Reading, is a software provider specialising in the small to midsize lifestyle, gift and department store sectors. Shipster, based in Manchester, connects online retailers, ecommerce warehouses and distributors with over 100 leading couriers.
CapCut has unveiled CapCut Commerce Pro, a web-based content production platform designed specifically for e-commerce sellers, small businesses, and creators to produce and scale high-quality ads and branded content. Today’s e-commerce professionals rely on content to connect with their audiences and showcase products and services to achieve key business goals. CapCut Commerce Pro aims to address the need for efficient, high-quality content creation and empowering creators and businesses to streamline their workflows effortlessly. The platform includes a ‘Holiday Edition’ video and photo generation section, making it simple to produce high-quality marketing content with one click for key shopping events like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the holiday season, helping brands stand out during these peak moments. CapCut Commerce Pro is now available in the US, UK and other select markets.
