Don Marti

Mon 01 Dec 2014 10:08:40 PM PST

Who's taking all the online ad money? (it's not me)

Chris Sutcliffe says publishers are losing out to adtech: Vox may have both innovative ad formats and significant scale, but traditional display isn't seen as especially exciting in a world where Google, Facebook and ad tech firms are taking home most of the money. (Why has Vox Media been valued at less than half of BuzzFeed?)

Michael Eisenberg says adtech firms aren't making much, either: Adtech and ad networks are equally fragile as they are completely dependent on publishers (many of whom themselves, as Adam points out, are dependent on Google and Facebook.) (A Call to Israeli Engineers! Adtech Is Not For You.)

What if they're both right?

What if the money in online advertising is vanishing not because the publishers are making off with it, or because adtech firms are making off with it, but because the valuable parts of advertising are being just plain destroyed online?

What if web ads as we know them are just the digital equivalent of Windshield Flyer Guy? Checking out the car, leaving a flyer. And failing to send a brand-building signal. Targeting destroys signaling power, so adtech firms, and publishers, are fighting over a pool of money that gets smaller as they get better at grabbing it.

John Broughton explains: From the point of view of an advertiser the biggest problem with ad tech (programmatic as it’s called by advertisers) is that it, and the internet at large, is not currently setup to deliver brand advertising. At all. (How will brand advertising work? )

That old browser bug, the flaw in cookie handling that enables tracking and prevents signaling, is costing us a lot, isn't it? Time to talk about the necessary steps for fixing it , for both brands and publishers.