Thanksgiving Online Retail Sales Get a Boost, With Mobile Helping Lead the Charge

If you had your eyes on any device last week, you were fully aware that Black Friday (and Cyber Monday) were coming up. And it seems the blitz made an impact on sales, especially via mobile. On Thanksgiving alone, online retail sales hit $3 billion -- and mobile was a big driver of that jump. Mobile advertising may also get a boost from the proposed net neutrality. That's not an endorsement of the controversial idea, however. We'd rather the internet just stayed as is and today's creative and innovative advertisers continued to be rewarded for working within the current confines (and without disrupting consumers).Your full rundown of mobile and online video ad industry happenings are below. See anything else we need to know about? Let us know.Thanksgiving Online Retail Sales Hit Nearly $3 Billion on the Back of Strong Mobile Growth [Recode]Mobile phone users accounted for 46 percent of visits to e-commerce websites and apps on Thanksgiving and 29 percent of sales, according to estimates by Adobe Analytics, which tracks 80 percent of online transactions across the top 100 U.S. web retailers. Last Thanksgiving, 27 percent of online retail revenue was attributed to transactions made on mobile phones.It’s Time for Online Media to Pivot from Advertising [Slate]Online advertising is looking more and more like a contest that publishers can’t win—not on a large scale, at least. Advertising can help to cover some of their costs, but online ads alone won’t pay for big, serious, high-quality journalistic enterprises the way that print ads once did. The idea that the news business needs to find different revenue models—subscriptions, memberships, events, nonprofit status—is hardly new. But it’s time for online media companies to take a harder look at it than they have before.The End of Net Neutrality Could be Good for Marketers -- and Bad for Just About Everyone Else [AdAge]The restoration of this version of "internet freedom" will change the media distribution landscape dramatically. It will be the perfect place for new creative ad units and offers. Think about how your brand can be positioned as a trusted, needed, content companion. It's an unintended consequence, but the FCC is about to give a lot of smart marketers an opportunity to shine.What Brand Marketers Need to Know About Mobile Ad Fraud [Adweek]Now, fraud has seeped into the mobile universe where it threatens the estimated $5.7 billion app-install advertising business in the U.S. Mobile can be a particularly challenging environment in which to track fraud as tools that are used for the desktop aren’t necessarily applicable to mobile devices. At this point, mobile fraud is something of a Wild West with plenty of runway for fraudsters to wreak havoc. Fraudsters are increasingly going after mobile as app-install revenues and mobile marketing continue to grow.The State of Digital Advertising in Four Charts [Digiday]Aside from the biggest advertisers, too few have the level of knowledge needed to take control of an ad tech stack. A report from media strategy consultancy ID Comms found that 41 percent of 229 senior marketing, media and procurement executives surveyed admitted they are still using ad tech “ineffectively” or “completely ineffectively.” Only 15 percent of the advertisers believed they are using their tech stack “effectively,” while no marketers claimed to be using it “very effectively.”How Brands Can Still Win Over Customers as Attention Spans Decrease on Social [Adweek]A recent Google study found that 53 percent of mobile site visitors will leave a page that takes longer than three seconds to load. In a world of quickly declining attention spans, a slow-loading website represents the ultimate sin. It is therefore imperative that a brand’s website back up its paid social activity. Nothing makes users abandon an online shopping cart faster than a poor check-out experience. Make sure all your destinations are mobile friendly and easy to use, considering not only the ad itself but also the journey users take after they click.‘People are Bombarded with Ads’: Confessions of an Ad Vet on User Experience [Digiday]Agencies have parallel agendas so they prioritize reach over quality. When I’ve worked for premium publishers in the past, despite having better data than any competitor, we were discriminated against by agencies because we didn’t have the biggest reach. It’s a disservice to their clients. It’s also putting publishers under a lot of pressure. I wish advertisers and publishers talked directly more. That’s happening more, and it should be the way forward.Personalized Video Ads are Engaging Consumers [Business Insider]And getting consumers’ attention after the first ad is even more difficult, as engagement typically drops off when consumers are exposed repeatedly to the same ad. This gives digital advertisements short shelf lives, and retailers little return on their investments. Personalization can help combat these issues by providing information and products that are relevant to the viewer, according to AdGreetz. The company helps brands create personalized video and display ads by using geolocation information, social media accounts, retailer-provided shopper history, and other data to tailor certain aspects of a video to the viewer.Brand Safety Prompts CMOs to Overhaul Digital Strategy [MediaPost]In the future, 98% will choose agencies or suppliers based on their ability to prove brand safety and transparency. Almost a third (30%) have boycotted or reduced spend on channels that can’t guarantee brand safety and 60% of CMOs say they are now directly involved in the execution of digital strategy. Over a third (34%) now book campaigns direct with suppliers rather than relying on agencies, and half of CMOs (50%) are even considering taking ad-buying in-house.Mobile Users Open to Black Friday Notifications [MediaPost]Mobile and Video Lead the Charge as Digital Ad Spend Hits New Record [The Drum]The Case for Advertising in Quality Publishing Environments, in Four Charts [Digiday]Kay Jewelers Offers Virtual Necklace Trial With Snapchat World Lens [Marketing Dive]The War on Ad Fraud: Every Day is Safer Than the Day Before [ExchangeWire] The Internet Broke the Media and There’s No Turning Back [Bloomberg]