The IAB Annual Leadership Meeting brings together leaders of the digital world to talk about the most pressing topics in interactive advertising. Many of this year's most discussed topics have been top of mind at Facebook as well. Digital marketing expert Sylvia Zhou shares key takeaways from the conference around what's changing in 2017.
Raising measurement standards
IAB's Outlook for Data 2017 report revealed that cross-channel measurement and attribution will be the industry's top areas of focus this year. More than two-thirds of the IAB survey respondents increased their spending on data and related services last year, and 71% anticipate even bigger budgets in 2017. These insights signal an industry-wide demand for more accurate measurement and reporting.
At Facebook, we expanded our measurement tools to help advertisers verify outcomes, so they can purchase ads with confidence. We also added more measurement partnerships to improve cross-channel comparability and third-party verification.
Controlling news quality
In his keynote at this year's conference, President and CEO of IAB Randall Rothenberg said, “Fake news is a failure of our supply chain, and there is no one culprit to blame in this scenario; it’s everyone’s collective duty to act to stop it now.”
At Facebook, we've made several updates designed to combat fake news on our platform. We incorporated new signals into News Feed to better identify and rank authentic content. We also improved the Trending feature. Trends are now based on the number of publishers posting about the same topic, and each topic is now paired with a headline from a published article. These updates take user feedback into account, and are part of our ongoing efforts to curb the spread of fake news.
Improving attribution
Attribution and identification were top concerns at IAB this year—and they're critical to the future of digital advertising. The industry is quickly transitioning from last-touch attribution to multi-touch attribution, which means advertisers are better able to understand the factors influencing people's actions and purchases. We created a Blueprint elearning course to help you get started with Facebook's multi-touch attribution solutions.
Evolving digital storytelling
New creative tools like live video and 360 photo are changing how people see and interact with content online. At IAB, Facebook's Dan Rose shared new opportunities to tell stories on our platforms. We're giving people more ways to experience immersive content and to create and consume video wherever they are. We're also giving our partners more ways to bring their stories to life with tools like Canvas and Creative Hub. And looking to the future, we're excited for the storytelling possibilities of virtual and augmented reality.
