Street Fight Daily: Facebook Video Marketing Woes, Google Stops Reading Email for Ad Targeting

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…

Facebook Video Ads Are All the Rage, But Viewability Rates Are as Low as 20%, Agencies Say (Digiday)
Some agencies started using new auditing capabilities provided by Facebook a few months ago and have been stunned to see viewability rates on Facebook video campaigns as low as 20 percent, going up to 30 percent, according to interviews with nine agency execs.

Cuebiq Partners With GeTui for Chinese Retail Data (Street Fight)
The location data provider has entered into a partnership with GeTui, a mobile internet, push-notification service provider to nearly one billion devices. Under their agreement, the companies plan to jointly develop a machine learning platform to process data about foot traffic and offline consumer behavior from the Chinese market.

Google Plans to Stop Scanning Users’ Emails for Ad Targeting (AdWeek)
In a blog post published Friday, Google Cloud SVP Diane Greene said the company plans to stop using the free consumer version of Gmail for ad personalization. The changes will take place later this year.

Sponsored Post: As Temperatures Soar, So Should Local Marketing (Street Fight)
Summer is here, and it feels like a new beginning. The change in season also means a drastic change in consumer behavior — with temperatures on the rise, so is consumer spending. Vivial has released free new eBook to help SMBs enhance their digital presence based on seasonal trends. 

How Amazon’s Whole Foods Buy Could Transform the Retail Ecosystem (Street Fight)
Amazon’s recent $13.7 billion acquisition of Whole Foods Market could signal a new era of experimentation and pushing boundaries in retail as the company continues to redefine content and commerce in the grocery space and elsewhere, according to Gwen Morrison, co-CEO of The Store, WPP’s global retail practice. Bloomberg: Amazon robots poised to revamp how Whole Foods runs warehouses.

Snapchat’s Newest Feature Is Also Its Biggest Privacy Threat (The Verge)
Dani Deahl: What Snapchat doesn’t tell you in the video, or in the app, is that if you aren’t careful, Snap Map will broadcast your exact location to anyone on your friends list every time you open the app.

5 Burning Questions Blue Apron’s IPO Is About to Answer (TechCrunch)
Blue Apron will be going public in short order, kicking off the second big major consumer IPO of 2017. It’s nowhere near as big as Snap, but the company at the top end of its IPO pricing will be valued at around $3.2 billion as it looks to raise nearly $600 million.

For Some Publishers, User Experience Trumps Revenue (AdExchanger)
Publishers like The Washington Post, Fusion Media Group and Time Inc. have all removed ad units to improve the user experience. And in some cases, the short-term pain leads to long-term gains. eMarketer: As Ad Blocker Use Grows, Publishers Face New Challenges

Samsung Wants Your Fridge to Be the Command Center for the Connected Home (VentureBeat)
While internet-enabled fridges aren’t a new phenomenon, with the likes of LG offering connected coolers as far back as 2000, Samsung has been going all-in to convince everyone that smart fridges should serve as the centerpiece of your connected home.

It’s 5 O’Clock Somewhere — Unless You’ve Been Acquired by Walmart (WSJ)
Soon after Wal-Mart Stores Inc. bought Jet.com Inc., employees at the e-commerce startup learned how dry life under the retail behemoth could be.

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