ExchangeWire rounds up some of the biggest stories in the European digital advertising space.

1. Display And FBX Help Boost Facebook

The industry’s behemoths filed their latest quarterly earnings this week with Facebook posting earnings of $7.87bn for 2013, an increase of 55% with the social network’s advertising exchange (FBX) now delivering over a billion ad impressions each day.

Revenue from advertising for the fourth quarter of 2013 was $2.34bn, a 76% increase compared the same period 12 months earlier, this period was also marked by another significant landmark with mobile ads generating 53% of revenues.

This period was remarkable for programmatic buyers with the launch of a new retargeting tool that will allow retailers to show ads to people who've visited their websites or mobile apps.

A predictably upbeat Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg also noted how the company felt the development of the (much maligned in its early days) Graph Search – which is still in its beta phase – could be used to feed into its revenue flow.

According to a Seeking Alpha transcript of the company’s earnings call, he said: “I think we built the most interesting new service using the social graph, Graph Search. This is an early beta product, but… Down the line if we do this well, this could potentially turn into a meaningful business for us.”

He later went on to praise the company’s targeting capabilities and its intentions to improve them using the Facebook Custom Audiences platform.

Zuckerberg said:” For targeting, I'm most excited about the work that we're doing on Custom Audiences, our tool that lets advertisers upload their customer list and target against that and information is already on Facebook at the same time.

Despite saying that the FBX was a very small part of the company’s business in a similar earnings call in mid-2013, Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg, also noted the success of the launch of the social network’s retargeting tool during the reporting period on the same conference call.

She said: “In the fourth quarter, we launched a new way for advertisers to buy guaranteed ad impressions with the goal of helping them reach massive audiences on mobile.

“It's important to understand that Custom Audiences is not a separate standalone ad product… FBX continues to gain momentum and drive solid results for advertisers.

“Despite only becoming available to all marketers in September, by December FBX served nearly 1 billion impressions daily and supported over 1,300 advertisers each day.”

2. But Display Proves A Drag On Yahoo

By Contrast, Yahoo saw its revenues slide 6% to $1.27bn during the fourth quarter of 2013, despite its host of acquisitions and the company boasting of its success in reversing historic traffic declines and suite of new ad products.

The company also noted how its price per ad unit slid 7%, due to intense competition in the display ad sector. In an earnings call, Mayer noted how the company had succeeded in reversing traffic declines on its network of sites and services, and also acknowledged her recent decision to dispense with the services of ex-Yahoo COO Henrique De Castro as (reportedly for failing to woo advertisers quickly enough) a difficult one.

A transcript of Yahoo’s earnings call, Mayer said it was ultimately the right decision to part ways with De Castro, and that she was confident the new Yahoo Advertising suite would woo more premium advertising deals.

She said: “Yahoo Ad manager also provides better access to data and targeting segments, inventory both on and off network as well as analytics. The early reaction in the advertising community has been extremely positive.”

3. Adobe Stats Point To Hike In Paid-For Social Prices

Adobe this week released its Social Media Intelligence Report, using info from its Data Marketing Cloud to indicating that Facebook’s ad click through rate (CTR) is up 365% year-on-year and Facebook cost per thousand impressions (CPMs) increased 437% in 2013.
Facebook ad click volume is up 125% year-on-year in 2013 during the reporting period, helping drive Facebook’s CPC rates up even more.

Tamara Gaffney, Adobe Digital Index, principal analyst, says: “We expect Facebook’s competitors to aggressively drive market share growth in 2014 by adding innovative paid media capabilities.”

These figures were further backed up by Nielsen’s quarterly Global AdView Pulse report, which was also published this week, indicating internet ad spend grew by more than 32% in the first three quarters of 2013. It also forecast that multi-screen advertising campaigns, which are expected to grow to 50% of ad budgets in the next three years.

4. Data Privacy Tops The Bill

Customer concern over data privacy is at an all-time high, according to a report issued this week by Truste.

The privacy awareness body released its annual Consumer Confidence Index, revealing 60% of participants in the survey were more concerned about their online privacy compared to 12 months ago, with 89% actively “avoiding” companies they don’t believe protect their privacy adequately.

However, this has not deterred Microsoft Advertising (which has appointed itself as the guardian of online privacy) striking a deal with nugg.ad that will see the IT giant use improved ad targeting technology on its suite of digital services, including Xbox 360, Skype and email service Outlook.com.

5. Weve To Champion Mobile Programmatic In UK

Weve, the joint venture (JV) company between the three-largest UK mobile operators, has lifted the lid on a mobile display ad pilot with Tesco as the participating brand.

The JV between EE, O2 and Vodafone, has divided industry opinion, with the three-month trial that will see it serve display ads on mobile web pages and apps to its 22 million-strong subscriber base (80% of the addressable market).

Advertisers participating in the trial – Tesco in the first instance – can target campaigns based on Weve’s verified first-party data (for instance the data it collects when customers sign up to the service), with staff at the unit confident of gaining their fair share of brand spend.

This also comes the same week as ExchangeWire discussed the emergence of an IAB Mobile Programmatic working group – with companies such as Google and Microsoft Advertising on board - aimed at bridging the gap between traditional mobile practitioners that want to know more about programmatic, and vice versa.