Is YouTube About to Blow Up Ad Blockers For Good?

The platform’s clever move will make ads technically indistinguishable from video content. What does that mean for advertisers?

YouTube Delivering Ads In-Stream to Kill Blockers

Your YouTube ads might start getting more reach soon, as the platform takes its battle against ad-blockers to the next level.

It’s testing server-side ad injection, a technique that embeds ads directly into video streams.

This makes ads indistinguishable from content for software and extensions that try to filter out advertising.

The move, of course, part of YouTube's broader crackdown on ad-blocking, which has seen the platform target browser ad-blockers and third-party YouTube apps popular on mobile.

This is a big technical hurdle as it requires changes to YouTube's core video delivery infrastructure. But clearly, the company believes it’s worth it in the long run.

And, hey, if they end up selling more ad-free Premium subscriptions too along the way, no harm no foul.

One user who went to the YouTube subreddit wrote:

While consumers might hate it, marketers will probably like it. The move will, of course, get in front of more eyeballs — which helps everything: the campaign learning, the cost, and the potential results.

You Can Now Buy Uber Ads Programmatically

It just got easier to put your ads in front of consumers while they’re in an Uber.

The rideshare company will now sell its Journey Ads programmatically.

This will let advertisers use demand-side platforms (DSPs) like Google’s Display & Video 360, The Trade Desk, and Yahoo DSP to buy display and video ads in the Uber app.

Uber claims that Journey Ads deliver performance “well above industry standard,” with a click-through rate of more than 3% and an average global view time of more than 100 seconds. In their own reported numbers, 80% of users said the ads caught their attention.

This is another example of how companies that didn’t used to be ad companies are realizing the gold mine they sit on with their own first-party data. Uber, of course, has details on where its customers tend to go and even what they eat, with their food delivery app.

This move is part of Uber's broader effort to build its advertising business, with the goal of reaching $1 billion in annual ad revenue by the end of the year.

Meta Pauses Its AI Assistant in Europe

Meta this morning put its much talked-about AI Assistant on ice in Europe. This, after objections from Ireland's Data Protection Commission over Meta’s scraping of its users’ content to train the AI.

Meta, of course, expressed disappointment saying they’d already taken regulatory feedback into account. Its process was to let people opt-out by the end of this month, but provided no information on how to remove the data if people missed that deadline and their content got ingested.

The Irish Independent news site noted that Meta's pause in data collection comes after Google and OpenAI had already used European users' data to train their AI models.

Meta said if European regulators don’t let them use their users' content to train their AI, they can only deliver a subpar product.

LinkedIn’s “Premium Company Pages” Cost $99/mo

LinkedIn will soon have a new way for your company to stand out on its platform, though it’s going to cost you.

It’s about six weeks away from launching something it calls Premium Company Pages, a subscription-based service aimed at small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). This is something they announced a while ago; now, they say they’re in the final stages of getting it up and running.

Premium Company Page subscribers can add custom call-to-action (CTA) buttons [compelling CTA examples] to generate leads, it comes with auto-invites for people who engage with your brand’s content a lot, deeper insights into Page visitors, and the ability to display customer testimonials.

(Plus, of course, even more AI powered post-writing assistance because that’s what we’re all desperately clamouring for, apparently.)

LinkedIn says Premium subscribers will receive more alerts from searchers looking for service quotes and the pages will be displayed in more areas of the platform.

The subscription starts at $99 per month, although it's cheaper if paid annually. LinkedIn expects the Premium Company Pages to be globally available by the end of July.

Spotify Opens a Creative Agency

Spotify has created an in-house creative agency that could compete for clients against the agencies it’s already working with.

It’s called Creative Lab and it wants to work directly with brands to develop bespoke ad formats, including video ads, in-app digital experiences, and interactive ad formats like call-to-action (CTA) cards.

And, in a move that somehow seems the opposite of a “creative” lab, it’s rolling out an AI tool that will generate AI voiceovers for ads. It can also write script drafts and is expected to be available in the ad manager soon.

Spotify has more than 600 million monthly active users, including 236 million paying subscribers.

X Fires Employees, Then Demands Money Back

Sounds like Elon Musk used his woke-free AI tool Grok to do some math, and things went south.

X is pursuing at least six former Australian employees who were laid off, demanding they return some of their severance payments because, well, the company didn’t do the currency conversion right.

In some cases, it resulted in a $1,500 overpayment; in one case, it was off by $70,000.

X politely requested repayment “at your earliest convenience” and, oh yeah, also, we might sue you if you don’t.

One uninvolved lawyer reached for comment by Ars Technica said if the error was genuine, there is typically an obligation to return the overpaid funds under Australian employment law.

So far, none of the former employees have repaid anything.

– 30 –