The ad blocking controversy, explained

In principle, the makers of these browsers could include ad-blocking functionality out of the box — and even enable it by default.
Indeed, that's already happened once in the past. Once upon a time, the internet advertising landscape was littered with "pop-up" ads that would automatically spawn a new window when you browsed to a site. That led to the creation of pop-up blockers; eventually, pop-up blocking became a stock feature on most modern web browsers. But desktop browser makers have not chosen to do this to block all ads — so while ad blocking software is popular among some power users, it's a decidedly niche marketplace.
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It also doesn't exist at all on Apple's iPhones and other iOS devices, because you can't use browser extensions on Apple's mobile Safari. Not, that is, until iOS 9, the latest iteration of the operating system, which does allow for selective-content-blocking extensions.
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Interestingly, evidence from past technological shifts suggests that whatever happens with ad blocking technology, it is unlikely to alter the total amount of money spent on advertising.

 This means that there is a zero-sum element to change in the advertising industry. The rise of new media does not expand the total pie — it grabs a bigger slice away from old media. Ad spending stays consistent at 1 to 2 percent of GDP, no matter what.
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A shift away from programmatic display ads in favor of "native" ads.
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Ad blocking software can identify ad networks, and block certain kinds of advertising scripts, but it can't read minds and discern why a given story was published. Consequently, forms of advertising that fit natively into the editorial content stream should be immune to ad blocking.
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Apple News, which launched with iOS 9 right alongside the new mobile ad blocking powers, is another example of a browser-free mode of content consumption. Apple is going to serve ads from inside the News app, and there'll be no blocking there.
http://www.vox.com/2015/9/18/9351759/ad-blocking-controversy

Adobe Marketing Cloud revenue jumps 27%, hits run rate of $1.5B annually

http://venturebeat.com/2015/09/17/adobe-marketing-cloud-revenue-jumps-27-hits-run-rate-of-1-5b-annually/ 

 

Salesforce Joins Upstarts Using Machine Learning to Clinch Deals

For all the advances technology has brought to corporate life, salespeople still rely heavily on guesswork when it comes to wooing customers and closing deals, usually involving late-night conference calls and spreadsheets about client interactions.
A raft of startups such as Clari Inc., Aviso Inc. and Highspot Inc. are aiming to change that by hawking technology that uses software to analyze and predict deal outcomes and suggest marketing strategies for corporate sales teams, potentially saving time and boosting revenue.
The systems use machine-learning technology to let businesses crunch reams of data that can help them focus time and resources on winnable deals. Larger companies are also taking notice -- this week, Salesforce.com Inc. unveiled SalesforceIQ, integrating machine-learning capabilities into its main sales-management program to eliminate some of the tedious data entry required to use it.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-18/salesforce-joins-upstarts-using-machine-learning-to-clinch-deals

The Web-Tracking Tipping Point

The future of web tracking is simple to understand, but painful to acknowledge; we can’t rely on third-party cookies and JavaScript snippets anymore. The burden shifts from the user’s browser back to our own web servers, and this shift will add complexity to web stacks.
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Requests to Google or Optimizely’s servers from the user’s browser will often be blocked under the new content blockers, but requests to the origin are unlikely to be blocked.
The logical solution, therefore, is that solutions that rely on asynchronous requests to third-party domains will release server-side libraries. Along with your JavaScript snippet, you’ll be pasting PHP or Ruby libraries on your server, as well; the JavaScript will send requests back to your own servers, which will then communicate with these third-party services REST-fully.
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For most webmasters, they will rely on their hosts or on WordPress plug-ins to do this work for them. 
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The other issue is scalability. Most web properties today are optimized to serve pages, not to handle and process an influx of analytics data. The new server-side solutions must be simple, reliable and cohesive. If we add dozens of requests and pixels without thinking about performance, as is the case today, we’ll end up flooding our own servers, adding costs and potential latency.
http://techcrunch.com/2015/09/17/the-web-tracking-tipping-point/

European Marketers Tracking ROI On More Channels Than Ever -
Adobe Digital Index/ Market Research

An ever-growing number of choices has left European marketers tracking an average of 10 channels.

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“The increase in channels used by consumers over the last two years highlights how complex marketing interactions have become,” said John Watton, Director Digital Marketing EMEA, Adobe. 
That’s the key finding from the latest Adobe Digital Index (ADI) report on the performance of digital marketing channels.

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ADI Principal Analyst Tamara Gaffney pointed out: “Although we’ve been talking about more sophisticated attribution models for a few years now, most marketers are still stuck on last-click tracking,”  

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But ADI analysts were keen to stress that focusing on the last click can short-change the contribution of other channels at earlier stages in the customer’s journey.
“Social and display are often undervalued in last-click models,” Maykot said.
https://www.cmo.com/articles/2015/9/15/adi-european-marketers-tracking-roi-on-more-channels-than-ever.html

Introducing Signal for Facebook and Instagram

Today we’re excited to introduce Signal, for Facebook and Instagram, a free discovery and curation tool for journalists who want to source, gather, and embed newsworthy content from Facebook and Instagram, across news, culture, entertainment, sports, and more—all in one place.
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-  Discover what’s trending now on Facebook 
- See data on who is driving the most conversation on Facebook
- Search Instagram for visual content surrounding news events around the world
- Easily embed content and data from Facebook and Instagram in online and offline coverage
http://media.fb.com/2015/09/17/introducing-signal/
https://www.facebook.com/facebookmedia/get-started/signal

There's some new data out on the huge ad blocking trend — and it's a grim read for online publishers

Now we have some more data out, this time from "ad blocker blocker" Sourcepoint and internet analytics company comScore.

Worryingly for web publishers, it's the people that consume the most content that are most likely to be blocking ads.

http://uk.businessinsider.com/theres-some-new-data-out-on-the-huge-ad-blocking-trend-and-its-a-grim-read-for-online-publishers-2015-9?r=US&IR=T