How can you tell how transparent holding company earnings are?

HubSpot conducted research on the reasons for ad blocking, and it's worth a read.

Controversy, insults, and even racism fuel online video consumption when it comes to sports.

The biggest negative I've observed in the rapid progression of real-time media and data is that it has also accelerated the shift toward performance and sales conversion logic and away from branding and consumer experience. Yes, I know, there is also plenty of data available on those softer attributes, but when push comes to shove, many of the brands and agency folks I speak to are increasingly giving it lip service relative to the real-time value of selling things. Fundamentally, that is the goal of marketing, right? So if we can cut to the chase, who cares what leads up …

The supply of digital uniques has eroded over the past year, but most of the decline has come from desktop vs. mobile, according to an analysis of the past 12 months of data from the Digital Traffic Index. The index, a collaboration of Jumpshot and MediaPost that tracks the supply of daily unique users on mobile and desktop screens, fell to an 85.38 on Friday, July 8. That's down from an index of 112.05 on July 10, 2015, the equivalent Friday a year ago.

Adblock Plus gave its first public viewing of a micropayments system it has been developing with microdonations platform Flattr, but it is still being less-than-public about what the source of funding for those payments will be. Consumers? Good luck with that. Advertisers and agencies? Ditto. Presumably, it will come by redirecting revenues from publishers that pay to get whitelisted so their ads don't get blocked by Adblock Plus. In other words, it will probably involve robbing Peter to pay Paul.

I've been following my colleague Sean Hargrave's take on a European backlash to programmatic for some time now, so I figured today's release of IAB Europe's annual digital ad spending report would be a good occasion to weigh in. That, plus this is my first RTBlog filling in for RTD Editor Tobi Elkin, who is on vacation. And from what I can tell, if there is a European exodus from programmatic, it may just be a British one.

While there are a baffling array of tactics when it comes to purchasing media programmatically, it's worth untangling those choices to understand the benefits of automated media buying.

The IAB has issued a whitepaper that seeks to clarify the confusion over programmatic video and sort through issues for all stakeholders.