NBCUniversal’s Fandango, the digital network for entertainment, will combine two popular movie and TV streaming services — Vudu and FandangoNOW — to support ecommerce and improve on-demand entertainment services.

Vudu, once owned by Walmart, will provide the ecommerce service, charging fees to rent or own individual titles. The updated service is replacing FandangoNOW as the official movie and TV store for Roku.

The change takes place today. 

Consumers can currently buy or rent movies on Roku through FandangoNOW. Starting Today, consumers can buy and rent movies on Roku through Vudu, as the service becomes Roku’s official digital movie retailer or transactional video-on-demand service.

Fandango, which began as a movie-ticketing business in 2000, built a digital network serving tens of millions of fans — from ways to search and discover movies and TV shows on Rotten Tomatoes, to three theatrical ticketing apps and now an updated Vudu on-demand streaming destination.

The new Vudu service will offer more than 200,000 new release and catalog movies and TV shows to rent or buy, including the largest collection of 4K UHD titles and thousands of titles to watch for free, no subscription required.

The latest releases available on Vudu include “F9: The Fast Saga,” Pixar’s “Luca,” “The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It,” “Peter Rabbit 2,” “The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard,” “A Quiet Place Part II,” Disney’s “Cruella,” “Godzilla vs. Kong,” “In the Heights” and more. Marvel Studios’ “Black Widow” arrives next week on Vudu

Vudu — which Fandango acquired in 2020 — is available in more than 75 million U.S. TV-connected device households, according to The NPD Group. The company has more than 60 million registered users and serves millions of consumers daily across Smart TVs, connected devices, mobile and online. 

With the change, Fandango plans to give partners more ways to offer reward options such as promo codes for movies and TV shows on Vudu.

A Fandango spokesman said the combination should make the rewards programs more attractive to partners. Dozens of rewards and loyalty programs are either available now or are scheduled to launch during the next year. There are programs planned with Walmart, Dr. Pepper, Johnson & Johnson, and Verizon.

Beginning today, FandangoNOW customers can transfer their accounts — movie and TV collections — to Vudu. The Movie Store and TV Store on Roku devices will automatically update from FandangoNOW to the new Vudu.

Email marketers trying to build their subscribers lists have a tool right sitting in front of them: apps.

Consumers are using 30% more applications than they did  two years ago, and 85% say apps have become a critical part of their lives over the last 18 months, according to The App Attention Index 2021: Who takes the rap for the app, a study by Appdynamics, a part of Cisco.  

Does your firm have an app (or two)? You can use your email newsletter to get people to sign up for your app — and vice versa.  

People increased use of their apps for these purposes:  

• Tools for connecting with friends and family — 44% 
• Entertainment — 46%
• News and information — 42%
• Food delivery services — 41% 
• Collaboration/productivity tools for work or education — 46%
• Retail — 37%
• Healthcare — 35% 
• Banking and insurance — 34%
• Lifestyle — 30% 
• Government services — 29%
• Hospitality, leisure and travel — 20% 

Access to digital services has helped people in these ways since the start of 2020:

• Stay connected to friends and family — 90% 
• Access to entertainment — 86% 
• Access to public services and support services — 77% 
• Access to health care services — 77% 
• Look after mental health and/or physical fitness — 73% 
• Connect and collaborate with others for work — 73%
• Enable learning/access to education — 70%

As with emails, there are things that turn people off to apps. Here are the top five problems seen over the last 12 months:

• Slow page/screen load
• Poor connectivity 
• Crashing/stopped working 
• Slow streaming of content
• Slows down device/drains battery

Do your apps have such difficulties? Well, 68% of people believe it is disrespectful to offer a poor digital experience in this day and age. And 57% say such issues are completely avoidable. 

And if you charge for an app, please know that 71% of consumers expect an enhanced service if they’re paying for it. 

What do people want of apps in general? Here’s what they demand of the experience:

• Security (my personal data is secure — 62%
• Simple (easy to use and navigate/intuitive) — 59%
• Convenient (available whenever and wherever I need it — 54% 
• Helpful (serves a specific need) — 49% 
• Fast loading and processing (saves me time) — 49%
• Engaging and fun to use — 34% 
• Personalized (treats me as an individual, considers my preferences) — 33% 

Of course, the digital experience should be consistent across all channels, from app to email to web, and social too. Your brand should deliver an integrated experience, filled with videos and other forms of content.  

If you’re wondering why consumer expectations have increased, here’s why:

• There is much more choice, and I know I can switch to another brand — 41% 
• They’ve had to shift to digital, so I expect brands to be investing in making the customer experience incredible — 34% 
• I have seen brands innovating and constantly improving and now expect this as the norm — 33% 
• I rely so much on them that I can’t afford for them to fail — 30%

It just shows that there is little margin for error for some consumers. 

During the past six months, marketers have seen the growth of channels like digital out-of-home, the shifting timelines around the end of third-party cookies, the continued adoption of connected TV, and the changing landscape of consumer behavior. 

It doesn't seem possible to get through a conversation with a fellow marketer without talking about timelines around third-party cookies, media budgets, omnichannel, and privacy regulations. 

Choozle, a self-service programmatic ad platform, released findings from its 2021 mid-year digital advertising trends report that answer some of those questions.

The metrics, pulled from the company’s platform between January 1, 2021, to June 30, 2021, were gathered from more than 4,000 advertisers. The data provides insights on the directors to take

Not surprisingly, budget allocation by device type varies, but one thing is certain -- consumers now are out and about making out-of-home and mobile media an obvious choice when it comes to where to spend.

Choozle did not report on OOH, but in this company's data, mobile remains one of the leading digital advertising media in 2021, taking 49.1% of the budget allocation -- up 16% since the end of 2020, according to the data.

Desktop comprised about 33.4% of budget allocations, and connected TV comprised 17.5% of budgets, in the first half of 2021.

Targeting strategies also are top of mind, and many marketers have begun testing new strategies. Here’s what they’re doing.

• Marketers have moved on from IP address targeting in 2021 with use declining by 20%
• More digital advertising campaigns have used third-party data — up 7% — and contextual targeting--up 10% — since the end of 2020
• More Marketers are testing third-party strategies — about 42.8% total
• Retargeting and CRM data continue to be the most commonly used forms of first-party data—about 17.9%.
• Some use geolocation at 16.8%, and contextual category targeting at 16.8%, and contextual keyword targeting at 5.6%

The value of ad placement also pays off. Inventory and bid preferences data show 82% of all impressions serve-up above the fold online. Above the fold on average, marketers see $5.94 for CPMs and 0.14% for CTRs. On average below the fold, marketers see $4.85 for CPM and 0.05 for CTR.  

No one can deny the increase in video. Pre-roll continues to be the predominantly used inventory placement for video. Not only does this help drive high VCR but it creates better engagement.

• Video lengths of :15 and :30 seconds are the sweet spot for driving high completion rates
• Marketers might want to use the :60 or :90-second spots, but users are less likely to complete them

The cost-per-click (CPC) and cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM) in Q2 2021 fluctuated widely on most platforms, from Google to Amazon, Facebook and Snap. While Google’s CPCs across travel advertisers remained flat year-over-year, other verticals — retail, CPG, FiServe, and nonprofit — experienced dramatic increases during the same time frame.

“On social, Instagram CPMs continue to drive efficiencies, decreasing month over month and quarter-over-quarter, while Facebook is the opposite, growing more expensive due to competition,” said Marion Gendron, senior manager with Merkle's search practice.

Google paid-search ad-spending growth decelerated from Q1, as CPC and clicks faced a reversal of last year’s trends, according to Merkle.

The agency’s Q2 2021 Digital Marketing Report noted that spend rose 8.7% YoY -- despite a drop in click growth by 19%.

When asked whether rising CPCs are forcing brands to increase budgets, Gendron said CPCs force brands to reevaluate investments and the tactics worth paying for.

"Sometimes advertisers will reach deeper into their pockets to remain live across the media plan at a higher cost, if it delivers on the business goals," she said. "Other times, brands selectively pause some high-cost, low-performing tactics to concentrate dollars where necessary to drive the strongest results. This is expected to vary by the competitive activity in each vertical."

Because search is a full-funnel channel, with exceptional performance near-conversion and evidence of competitive fluctuation highlighted, advertisers leveraging search-engine marketing value those last few clicks and feel the pressure in the cost of them.

Given the importance of role-of-channel and not wanting to surrender these hand-raisers to competitors, SEM budgets are typically preserved and increased, and only cut when business priorities fundamentally change.

Google CPC prices increased 35% YoY as last year CPC declined by 21% in the first full quarter within the pandemic.

Although Google Search and Other reported that the company generated $35.8 billion in Q2 2021 -- up from $21.3 billion in the year-ago quarter -- Google text and product-listing ad clicks fell YoY, with the ad types seeing 21% and 5% declines, respectively, according to Merkle. PLA CPCs rose 21% YoY, and text ads rose 35%.

Merkle notes that spending on Google desktop searches rose 12% YoY. Increases on desktop were driven entirely by rising CPCs -- up 36% even when clicks declined 17%.

Mobile phone growth was also driven entirely by YoY CPC increases -- up 24% -- but saw lower declines in clicks, down 10%. Tablets' YoY declines continue to be minimized as CPC have increased.

Microsoft CPC prices rose, and spending on Microsoft text ads grew 14% YoY in Q2, rising for the second straight quarter.

Text ad spend was driven mainly by 37% YoY CPC increases as clicks fell.

Similar to text ads, products ads saw 32% Y/Y CPC growth, while clicks reversed course from Q1 -- dropping 31% Y/Y and ultimately leading to a 9% drop in product ad spend, according to Merkle.

Amazon CPC prices rose20% between the first quarter and second quarter for all ad formats, according to Business Insider, citing stats from performance ad agency WPromote.

Price Glomski, executive vice president at PMG, told Business Insider that beauty and retail clients saw high CPM spikes in Amazon's programmatic inventory, with average prices for those clients rising from $3.60 in February to $8.60 in May and June and topping the agency's average programmatic CPM of $4.60.

Clicks and Sales on Amazon Sponsored Brand ads experienced the lowest growth in recent years in June -- 28% and 53%, respectively, according to Merkle.

Facebook CPM prices also rose during Q2 2021. The company reported that the average cost per ad increased 47% YoY in Q2 2021, and warned investors that ad prices are likely to continue to climb in the second half of the year. 

The growth of impressions on Facebook grew primarily in developing markets, specifically in Asia Pacific. WPromote, Business Insider reported, found that ad prices increased 30% from the first and second quarter, with an average CPM of $11.

TikTok CPM prices rose 92%, while Snap CPM prices rose 64% and YouTube CPMs rose 108% year-over-year in July, according to Business Insider, citing Measured.

Pinterest, which has long been wooing disrupter brands to advertise on its platform, spooked observers with some unexpected news this week: It lost about 7% of its U.S. users.

The rest of its second-quarter financial results soared past expectations. That includes a 125% jump in revenues, growing to $613 million, from $272.5 million in the comparable period last year. Net income rose to $69.4 million, compared to a loss of $100.7 million in the year-ago period. And global monthly active users increased by 9%, reaching 454 million.

But headlines focused on the unexpected dip in American fans. Pinterest’s reluctance to commit to a third-quarter forecast of U.S. users, citing ongoing uncertainty around the pandemic, didn't help. At one point, the stock fell to almost 20% below recent trading ranges.

In announcing the results, Ben Silbermann, Pinterest's co-founder and CEO, chalked them up to "recent shifts in consumer behavior we've seen as people spend less time at home."

Even before the announcement, analysts had been detecting that shift, and in its first-quarter results, the company had said growth was slowing for monthly users.

Baird, for example, in its recent engagement study of Internet users, finds that people are disengaging, albeit slightly, from Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter, even as they spend more time on TikTok and Snapchat.

Colin Sebastian follows Pinterest for Baird and notes that while the drop in U.S. users is concerning, "we believe that monetization will prove to be the more critical growth driver."

He points out there’s "impressive advertiser demand, including a strong recovery in spending from large advertisers and a growing contribution from travel verticals."

Wedbush Securities, which currently rates Pinterest as an "outperform," says that despite the company's step back in user growth, Pinterest's "long-term story is still intact."

Ygal Arounian, who follows the company for Wedbush, writes that the San Francisco-based Pinterest is "almost turning into a transition story, as it rebuilds its platform around engaging Idea Pins (or video content), rather than static images." How well that will work now, with users falling below expectations and behaving -- more or less -- as they did before the pandemic, is still in question.

He is encouraged that most of the drop came from desktop users rather than mobile, which accounts for about 75% of total users. And growth has been strong among users 25 and younger.

"Pinterest does continue to build out a unique platform that is more shoppable and continues to outpace expectations around monetization, which is a testament to the unique format of its platform," he adds. "Over time, Pinterest should have room to grow ad loads and strengthen its ad products."

For smaller D2C brands, Pinterest continues to be a significant social-commerce platform. Pinterest says that 97% of the platform's top searches are unbranded, consisting of just two or three-word queries.

That means businesses of any size "have an equal chance to be discovered," it says, in a recent announcement about global expansion plans with Shopify. "This unique mindset of the Pinterest audience provides a valuable advantage to small and medium-sized businesses who can gain more visibility because of the relevancy of their content and the quality of their products."

WhizzCo on Monday officially launches the Content Recommendation Yield Optimization Platform for publishers that enables them to work with multiple content recommendation engines like Outbrain, and Taboola simultaneously through an intuitive dashboard.

The predictive artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm supported by a machine-learning neural network predicts the CPM for each individual content recommendation vendor that serves impressions.

Ryan Nathanson, senior vice president at SHE Media, part of the Penske Media Corporation (PMC), believes that creating competition, facilitating user personalization, and providing tighter editorial control for on-page content recommendations has been a challenge that WhizzCo resolves.

He said the prediction technology created a competitive content recommendation ecosystem for SHE Media Partner Network, with publishers gaining 75% increase in content recommendation CPM and an overall better user experience for editorial teams and visitors.

SHE Media wasn’t the first company to test the feature, but rather larger unnamed publisher and part of a group -- Penske Media Corporation.

Publishers today serve users from around the world across desktop, mobile, and tablets running different operating systems. One content recommendation vendor may do better one week, but not the next. No content recommendation vendor is always best across all geographies, devices, OSs, and content verticals.

In addition to Taboola and Outbrain, WhizzCo supports all content recommendation vendors such as RevContent, ContentAd, NewsMax, Lockerdome, and nearly all of the 40 or so vendors worldwide. 

WhizzCo’s updated platform, the first version announced in May 2018, considers geolocation, device, site, widget layout and location, and historical performance to select the publisher network with the highest predicted CPM among all 40 content recommendation providers before serving ads to users.

The first version of this platform was announced in May 2018.

The ability to let publishers work with multiple vendors simultaneously to optimize yield can raise revenue by 37.7% from content recommendation, according to the company.

WhizzCo developed predictive technologies in the hope that publishers can overcome the lack of real-time programmatic bidding in content recommendation. It’s about supporting the loss of revenue from Apple terminating Identifier for Advertisers, and Google’s end to third-party cookies in its Chrome browser.

Publishers choose the providers that can serve the ads on their content recommendation widgets. It lets publishers target the correct inventory with the perfect content network provider. All are seen within one intuitive platform.

IT’s a self-service platform with built-in quality filters and fraud detection tools. Publishers can integrate existing partners, and add more as needed with a few clicks.