Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.
AdWords Offering Demo-Targeting Data
Dan Friedman announces on the Inside AdWords blog that demographic targeting is now available to advertisers. Looks like demo data is based on the sites a user visits. Friedman explains implications for the consumer: “As with interest categories, users may view and edit demographic categories or permanently opt out of receiving interest-based ads entirely with the Ads Preferences Manager. Because the interests and inferred demographics associated with a particular browser are based on recently visited sites on the Google Display Network, and not on user data, these categories may change over time.” Read more.
AppNexus Brings Real-Time Love To Europe
Looking to leverage its real-time ad platform capabilities globally, AppNexus announced that it has opened a datacenter in the Netherlands and said in a release that it “significantly expands the opportunity for real-time bidding (RTB) in Europe and the Middle East.” With milliseconds reduced between European publisher inventory and the AppNexus platform, RTB finds more friends in Europe. Read the release.
Out-Of-Home Marketplace Tastes New Funds
Out-of-home advertising marketplace has filled its funding dance card as it announced a $1.1 million round of funding. TechCrunch’s Lora Kolodny says the round includes a whole bunch of folks led by “DFJ Gotham, with participation from RRE, Founder Collective, Jeff Clavier, David Cohen, Kal Vepuri, David Tisch and Social Leverage (Howard Lindzon).” Read more. And, read the ADstruc interview with CEO John Laramie from earlier this year.
Agency Conundrum
On Ad Age, former Havas’ MPG and Omnicom Group OMD exec Jody Sutter says that agencies need to get used to cattle call reviews such as the famous one run earlier this year by Zappos. She advises to “kick the ‘boilerplate’ habit [and] streamline and simplify the pitch process.” Good luck. Read more.
More Vertical Ad Networks
ValueClick Media launched another vertical ad network – it’s Home and Garden this time as the vertical biz does not stop. Marketers love a niche. Labeled “Modern Living Media” network, ComScore says the network has a potential reach of 8.5 million unique visitors per month according to the press release and includes inventory from “National Fix and Flip Network, Ideal Home Garden, Home Interiors Zone, Decorator Secrets, BathroomCentral.com, PaintSplashes.com and DesignHole.com.” Take that, Design Hole! Read more. Need more verticals? Burst Media has built one for FOX Sports Interactive Media. Read about it.
Yahoo! Exec Leaves
Yahoo!’s VP of Media, Jimmy Pitaro, sales chief Hilary Schneider and U.S. audience head David Ko are on the way out says Kara Swisher of AllThingsD. Yikes! In reference to the Yahoo CEO and Pitaro, Swisher writes, “Bartz and other execs are still trying hard to keep Pitaro, but sources said his departure would likely be to another company.” Another one bites the dust. Read about Pitaro. Last night, the news came out on Schneider. It’s all coming down on Friday officially.
The Wingman Of Intent
On the Resolution Media blog, one of the search firm’s bloggers and account strategists, Tara Nofziger, brings human relationships into the mix as it relates to understanding the marketing funnel and intent in search. She writes, “Similar to humans, if a keyword (e.g. boyfriend or girlfriend) isn’t pulling its weight and falls short of expectations, despite being optimized (e.g. working at it) then, perhaps it’s time to call it quits and remove it altogether (e.g. break-up).” You know the feeling. Read about it.
Funneling With RocketFuel
RocketFuel is producing an event on October 13 with “The Facebook Effect” author, David Kirkpatrick, providing the opening keynote. Following the keynote, panelists will explore “Fueling the Funnel – Transforming Online Advertising from Direct Response to Brand Building” with Ana Ceppi of American Express, Matt Freeman of Mediabrands, Mike Racic, Universal McCann/J3 and Jerry Shereshewsky of GrownUpMarketing. You may request an invite here. And, read the release.
TheMIG’s ZAP Trader
Prior to their Advertising Week panel tomorrow, ContextWeb is providing a series of interviews with panelists including Paul Dolan, who runs Strategy and Operations for WPP’s Media Innovation Group. He outlines B3 services says its DSP services is only part of the toolkit: “ZAP Trader, the MIG’s DSP product, is only one of the MIG offerings, agencies and advertisers receive a more robust offering and access to more inventory sources than what is provided by DSPs.” Read more.
You’re Hired!
Ad verification technology company DoubleVerify announced in a press release that it has hired C. Eoin Townsend as svp of partnerships and business development. When last we left Townsend, he helped found advertising-for-local-government company MainStreetSocial (AdExchanger Q&A) along with co-founder Ryan O’Donnell. Read the release.
NBA And CTR
OwnerIQ’s Steve Ustaris manages to make a connection between former, highly accurate basketball player, Artis Gilmore and click-through rate (CTR). That’s not easy. Ustaris writes, “Just like in basketball, to truly assess the performance of the online channel, individual campaigns and each individual site, it is imperative to consider how to best use all available ‘statistics’ to assess true contribution of their roster.” Read about the connection.
