ExchangeWire rounds up some of the biggest stories in the European digital advertising space.

Facebook tests mobile ad network

1. It’s been yet another eventful week in the ad tech industry with some of the industry’s largest names continuing to make waves, with Facebook revealing that it is testing an in-app mobile ad network with a select number of advertisers. This means that advertisers will be able to use Facebook targeting data to target mobile app users outside of the social network.

A blog post announcing the update reads: “While we have run similar tests in the past, this current test is more like a mobile ad network in that we are working directly with a small number of advertisers and publishers rather than an outside ad-serving platform.”

In the same week that ComScore data suggests that Facebook’s penetration among US adults aged 18 to 24 decreased by three percentage points to 88.6% in Nov. 2013 (compared to Feb. 2013 figures), it’s best that the social network diversifies as quickly as possible.

Google makes further SEO cuts, continues paid-for drive

2. Matt Cutts, SEO-chief at Google, this week announced the curtailment of sites using ‘guest posts’ to augment their SEO rankings. In a blog post entitled: ‘The decay and fall of guest blogging for SEO’, Cutts describes the rationale.

He adds: Okay, I’m calling it: if you’re using guest blogging as a way to gain links in 2014, you should probably stop. Why? Because over time it’s become a more and more spammy practice, and if you’re doing a lot of guest blogging then you’re hanging out with really bad company. See more here.

Similarly, this week Google also announced the launch of AdSense Direct which lets (smaller) publishers sell ads directly without having to deal with some of the complexities involved in using DoubleClick for Publishers, iSocket, and OpenX. See more here. Google will take 15% commission on any such sales.

These two moves are indicative of Google effectively becoming a toll gate for just about every online marketing tool, as ‘free’ services are generally depreciated but the number of paid-for marketing services on offer multiplies.

3. Euro ad spend continues to lag

Global advertising spending rose 3.2% in the first three quarters of 2013, but European advertising budgets fell significantly below this figure according to figures released by Nielsen this week.

Nielsen’s quarterly Global AdView Pulse report revealed the embattled European ad market experienced a slight reprieve in the third quarter, with only a small decrease of 0.4 percent year-over-year during the third quarter. This contributes to a 3.8 percent fall when looking at the first three quarters of the year.

Whether this squeeze on overall ad budgets will drive more spend through programmatic channels remains to be seen, but predictions from ExchangeWire sources indicate that demand for such trading is rising.

4. Microsoft breaks rank with peers and shields user data

The great online privacy debate was one of the key stories of 2013, with the NSA scandal revealing just how much of our lives we leave open to scrutiny, with companies such as Google and Facebook also revealed as being complicit in such surveillance. Both companies’ insistence on housing servers containing their users’ data in the US being a key issue in this debate.

However, this week Microsoft’s general counsel Brad Smith revealed the company is to allow customers from outside the US to have their data stored on servers located elsewhere. For instance, European-based customers can elect to have their personal data stored in Microsoft’s Ireland-based data centre. This scandal has raised public awareness of online privacy to an unprecedented level and Microsoft has been keen to portray itself as a bastion of privacy, but so far this has failed to attract user numbers to its suite of services ahead of rivals Facebook and Google.

5. Guardian pockets £600m in Trader Media sale

UK-based Guardian Media Group this week revealed it is selling its 50.1% stake in Auto Trader owner Trader Media Group to private equity firm Apax Partners in a deal thought to be worth £600m to £700m. Upon completion, the deal will complete Apax’s control of Trader media Group, and will value the company at £1.8bn.