Next week, the Content Services team will be at dmexco in Cologne and I wanted to share an update about Content Services’ work ahead of the event. Last May, we announced “Suggested Tiles”, and during the summer, we went live with users of the American English (“en-US”) version of Firefox.
Since early August, we have been delivering promoted content provided by our first wave of partners including Yahoo, a number of top tier news titles including Fortune Magazine and Quartz, and mission-oriented partners such as the Make-a-Wish Foundation and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
These partners are leaders in their categories, and we chose them for their ability to add value in Firefox. While we consider these to be commercial partnerships, we are not receiving money to show this content. That is why Firefox users see only the label, “Suggested”, next to these tiles, rather than “Sponsored” (at the moment, the only sponsored Tiles we are running are Directory Tiles, which we launched last November).
Excitingly, we’re seeing high engagement rates with the content in the new tab. We’re also learning about the variables in the experience, such as the breadth of an interest category, the frequency and pacing of content, and of course, the creative assets themselves, and how they affect the rate of engagement.
As I wrote in March, we’re here to improve the state of digital advertising, and we continue to examine opportunities throughout the space. One is increasing transparency across the industry: as well as making sure that users understand their experience, and how they control it, we’ve also provided functional details of how the Suggested Tiles experience is delivered, including how interest categories are defined. This is transparent for partners, and transparent for users.
If you’re going to be dmexco in Cologne next week, we would be very interested to learn more about your needs and discuss the opportunities that Tiles represent. I look forward to seeing you there.