On this week's episode of The MadTech Podcast, Alexander Williams, head of growth & personalisation at M&S, joins ExchangeWire's Mat Broughton and Rachel Smith to discuss Netflix's CPM, industry bodies' responses to new EU political ad rules, and Shopify warning sellers to avoid Amazon's "Buy With Prime".

Netflix reveal industry-high CPM ahead of AVOD launch

Will advertisers accept this price tag? Is Netflix taking a risk here?

Netflix will reportedly charge brands a CPM of USD $60 to advertise on their upcoming ad-supported tier. The price point is an industry high, and is predicted to hit USD $65 before “eventually” climbing to USD $80, according to the Wall Street Journal.

According to reports, the streaming heavyweight wants advertisers to commit to year-long contracts, taking the same vein as broadcast TV networks. An aspiration of USD $20m worth of deals has surfaced, although it’s unclear whether this figure is the minimum or maximum the platform is aiming for.

The move is a bold one considering that Netflix’s AVOD offering is untested, will reportedly debut with limited capabilities, and won’t allow brands to choose what content their ads will run alongside (inventory will instead be offered by genre). Microsoft-owned Xandr will be responsible for measuring impressions, and previous reports claim that the amount of adverts will be limited to four minutes per hour. It’s understood that inventory will be sold via Microsoft.

Industry bodies express concerns over new EU ad rules

What impact could these new regulations have? What needs to be done to help brands navigate them?

New regulations set to be introduced by the European Union could have a serious impact on brands, warn industry bodies. The new policies, which pertain to political advertising, will set out a new definition of what constitutes political advertising, and will force big tech platforms and political parties to divulge how they target prospective voters.

The IAB Europe and Centre for Data Innovation have expressed concerns that the phrasing of the proposal, particularly that related to the definition of political advertising, is unclear. They also warn that the new policy could overlap with GDPR, causing confusion and, potentially, unintentional breaches by advertisers. 

Shopify deters sellers from using “Buy With Prime”

Why have Shopify issued this warning? How do you think Amazon will respond if “Buy With Prime” is effectively barred from the platform?

Shopify has told merchants to avoid using “Buy With Prime”, saying that the checkout option violates their terms of service. The ‘one-click’ service, which was launched by Amazon in April this year, allows third-party sellers to offer the speedy checkout and delivery provided under the ecommerce giant’s Prime subscription. 

Shopify says that the integration breaches its terms of use, which stipulate that merchants must use Shopify Checkout for “any sales associated with your online store”. The Canadian ecommerce heavyweight also warned that “Buy With Prime” could pose a risk to customers by making their data vulnerable to theft by Amazon or potentially causing them to be charged incorrectly for purchases.